The Next Step
by S. L. Rode
Summary: Set a year after Ty and Amy are married when they face an unthinkable tragedy. Doesn't fall into any timeline with the show. You'll notice some events of the show happened while I omitted others. Originally from my tumblr account, fuckyeahjavakiss., so you will see updates there first if you follow me, but I will keep up with it here and share others I have written too.
1. Chapter 1

"Well Mrs. Borden, what do you think?" Ty asked, taking a sip of his morning coffee as he stood on the porch of his…_their_ trailer overlooking the breathtaking Alberta vista that was their backyard.

"About what?" Amy asked in return when she came out to join her husband of almost one year with her own mug of tea.

"Well, you've been married to me for a year and haven't filed for divorce yet. I'd say that's a pretty good sign we're ready for the next step." Ty turned his eyes away from the beautiful view in front of him to the more stunning one that appeared beside him.

When their chance to put a down payment on their dream farm slipped through their fingers, twice, he and Amy decided it best not to push too hard for their own place right away. While it was often burdensome on Amy to have to travel back and forth from her new home with Ty to Heartland to continue her work with problem horses, decided it was a better arrangement than them trying to fit into the ranch house with the rest of the Bartlet-Fleming-Morris-Borden family. Now that they were married, living in separate quarters just seemed silly and, truth be told, Amy was ready to be able to live on her own with Ty, even if that meant traveling an extra couple miles to work every day.

"And what's the next step?" Amy asked with a curious raise of her brow. She and Ty had talked in brief about where they saw their life together going - their own ranch, Amy continuing her work with frightened and abused horses by combining both traditional medicine and alternative methods, Ty opening his own practice or at least partnering with Scott for a few years. Then of course came the mention of children. They both wanted them - two at least - but never really figured out where they could come into this timeline of theirs.

"'Morning everyone," Caleb yawned, stretching then sitting up on the couch, squinting at the early morning sun as he scratched the back of his head. "Oh, is that coffee? Got anymore?" Getting up then, he helped himself inside the trailer to forage for breakfast.

"Getting Caleb to move out once and for all," Ty mumbled under his breath, making Amy grin and throw a "Good morning, Caleb" over her shoulder.

**-So, you'll notice that in the scheme of things this chapter is pretty… irrelevant. But you have to know that originally this was just a pic-fic, meaning someone submitted a photo to my tumblr and I just wrote a little snippit of story to go with it. People started asking for more, so I decided to run with it. That's how TNS came to be.-**


	2. Chapter 2

Bouncing her leg, Amy tapped her finger on her knee as she lowered her gaze to the floor, shooting an anxious look in the direction of the test sitting on the edge of the sink then away again. These were the longest couple minutes of her life and her eyes rolled to the ceiling as her leg thumped faster the slower the seconds ticked by.

"Amy, what are you doing in there?" Georgie banged her fist on the bathroom door, sighing when she received no answer. "I have to get ready for school." Her forehead thumped against the door, thinking this would be the least believable excuse to use in order to get out of going to school. Her aunt hogged the bathroom: original, but not very creative.

"Just a minute, Georgie," Amy snapped, running her hand through her blonde hair as her nerves started to make her edgy.

"You've been in there forever."

"So go use Grandpa's outhouse if you have to go that bad." Amy's gaze bore into the back of the test, not really wanting to read the result while having this argument with Georgie.

Georgie wrinkled her nose at Amy's suggestion. "Someone's got a bug up her butt," she mumbled walking away from the door to get breakfast instead.

Closing her eyes, Amy sighed when she heard Georgie walking away from the door, glad to have a moment to herself again as the last few seconds passed. Reaching slowly for the stick, Amy picked it up and held it face down in her lap. "Okay…one…two…" She took a deep breath through her nose. "Two…" Shutting her eyes again, Amy held her breath. "Three." Then turned it over as she opened her eyes.

* * *

"Hey, you ready to go?" Ty asked, reaching out to run his hand over Spartan's ebony coat as Amy ran a brush slowly, absently, down his neck.

"Uh, yeah, about dinner. I'm not really feeling up to it tonight, maybe another time?" She glanced up at him briefly before lowering her gaze and concentrating intently on rubbing out a patch of dried mud from Spartan's shoulder, hiding her face behind his neck.

"Yeah, no problem." Resting his hand on Spartan's withers, Ty studied his wife's face for a moment. "Are you okay?"

After a few firm strokes over the horse's shoulder, Amy looked up at Ty, again briefly, with a curious frown. "Yeah. Why?"

"I don't know. Something just seems kind of different…off, I guess."

"What do you mean?" Amy bent down to drop the brush in the caddy then unclipped Spartan from the cross ties and walked him to his stall, Ty following behind and leaning on the open door.

"Well, this is the third time in the last week you cancelled or rescheduled plans."

"So? I'm just tired. We just got two new client horses in yesterday, plus with Nicole on vacation I've been helping Lou with the dude ranch." Tired was an understatement for how exhausted Amy felt over the last week, falling asleep almost immediately after crawling into bed.

"I'm just worried about you, Amy. You've been tired a lot lately and I noticed there's Ginger Ale in the fridge. I didn't think you drank Ginger Ale." At least all the years he's known her Ty never saw Amy drink it, just assuming she didn't have a taste for it.

"Well I do now," Amy responded rather bluntly, making Ty knit his eyebrows at her abrupt tone.

"Are you sure there's nothing else going on?" he asked, deciding it better not to mention her short temper lately for fear of exacerbating it.

Amy was quiet a moment as she exited the stall, latching it slowly. "Uh huh," she replied, purposely turning at such an angle that her back was to Ty as she started fixing grain.

Ty turned with her, forced to look at her back as she leaned over the feed bins. Something was definitely up. He wasn't oblivious, knowing all of Amy's little quirks and signals for when she was annoyed, angry, sad, happy. It was all so obviously there in her body language and her forced distance told him she had something on her mind that was bothering her. He just wasn't sure if it would be worth it to push her to tell him, not wanting to make it worse.

Amy's mind was running rampant. She struggled all day with how she wanted to tell Ty the news, flip-flopping between being excited and nervous. Now that he was there for her to tell him, she chickened out. If she told him now it would be like he forced it out of her after she tried to hide it from him. She wasn't trying to hide it, she just didn't know how to tell him without blurting it out.

The up and down motion of reaching to the bottom of the nearly empty feed bin was starting to make her nauseous and she leaned up to take a slow breath and settle her stomach, dumping the scoop of grain into a bucket. "Here, can you finish feeding. I'll go grab my stuff from the house. Lou made us a lasagna to take home." Handing to scoop to Ty, Amy tried not to rush out of the barn as her stomach turned on her and she jogged the last few steps outside to throw up behind the hitching rail.

Ty continued to look at Amy curiously, watching her hurry outside. He grabbed the first two buckets to hang them up when he could hear Amy getting sick. Setting them down in the aisle, Ty rushed outside to see her bent over holding her stomach as she vomited in the driveway. His approach was cautious, reaching out to lay a gentle hand on her back. "This isn't nothing, Amy. If whatever is bothering you has you this upset, you need to tell me."

"Maybe I'm just sick," she answered once she could breathe again, rubbing her hand over her stomach and coughing from the burn in her throat.

"This is more than just being sick. Now stop deflecting and tell me what's wrong." His hand ran soothingly over her back while the other pulled her hair back away from her face as she inhaled deep breaths.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because, look at me. This isn't how I wanted to tell you. It was supposed to be special, the right moment, like your proposal." Amy was almost in tears, upset at how terribly this moment was going and wishing the could go back a few minutes to start it over again.

"Tell me what?" Ty gathered the rest of her hair to hold in his fist that had been rubbing her back. He leaned down to try and encourage her to look at him. She did, slowly standing straight and turning to face him. For a long moment her eyes fixated on the buttons of his shirt. "Amy? Come on, you know you can tell me anything."

"I know. But this isn't just anything. It's going to change our whole lives."

Ty was finding himself getting nervous then as he gazed at Amy who finally brought her eyes to meet his. What could be so bad that she tried to keep from him? "What is it?"

There was a very long pause at their gazes locked and lingered, studying each other's expressions so intently as if trying to communicate through their thoughts. "I'm pregnant." Amy finally just let it out, the words floating on a breath of air.

Ty went silent, his eyes freezing on hers as the words slowly filtered through his brain, taking their sweet time to unfold into pieces he could understand. Amy gave him a moment to let it register before his lack of response became too much. "Ty, please say something."

Ty's mouth opened, then closed as he blinked and had an actual thought for the first time since receiving that news. "We're going to need a bigger trailer."


	3. Chapter 3

Laying awake in bed, Ty smiled softly to himself as he listened to his wife breathing quietly beside him. Early morning light was filtering through the curtain of the trailer, Ty turning his head to get a peek at the clock. It was early, but Amy would be waking up in only a few minutes to get ready to make her morning trip to Heartland to begin her own work day while Ty got ready for his shift at the clinic. But, looking over at his sleeping wife, Ty ended up reaching over to shut off the alarm clock instead. She'd probably be mad at him for that, but Amy deserved to sleep in today. Not only that, she definitely needed it. They didn't know how far along she was in her pregnancy, still having to set up a doctor's appointment, but decided to wait until after they told the rest of their family. Either way, it made her more tired than usual, but, of course, Amy wasn't the type to tend to those needs when she had so much on her plate right now. So, being the loving husband and soon-to-be-father that he was, Ty took the matter into his own hands. Amy would get her needed rest and he wouldn't get yelled at for letting her have it until after the fact.

Amy shifted in her sleep, Ty moving to lay on his side and watch her. His eyes trailed down to her belly that was still flat, but it made him smile to think it wouldn't be for much longer as their child grew. Slowly, Ty reached out to glide his hand over her side, sliding his arm around her and scooting closer to spoon against her. Propping himself up on his other arm, Ty leaned in to touch his lips gently to Amy's cheek and leaving a trail along her jaw. He watched her lips start to curve into a sleepy smile as she woke up, taking a few extra seconds to open her eyes. But when she did her head turned to look at him.

"Good morning, Mommy," he grinned, leaning in again to touch his lips to hers, drawing her tighter against him.

"Good morning, Daddy," Amy replied with her voice still heavy from sleep. She could feel Ty's hand against the warm skin of her belly, moving her own to rest over top of his. She wrinkled her nose a little as she said it though. "That feels so weird to say."

"It won't for long. I like calling you Mommy." Ty smiled, though it was strange to say, or to even think that in a matter of months that's who they would be for the rest of their lives.

"Just don't do it outside of the privacy of our home until we can tell everybody. I don't want things to get blown out of proportion this time." So man times big news like this was ruined by someone misreading a situation and starting a rumor that just exploded into something completely wrong or inaccurate.

"When do you want to tell them? We should do it sooner rather than later. You know what happens when things are left to fester."

She did, and sooner would be better considering it would be impossible to hide with her morning sickness that had been wrongly named as it lasted throughout the day. "How about dinner tonight? Lou mentioned Dad was coming too so everyone should be there." Tim was always there, though, so what made him decide to invite himself ahead of time and risk getting shot down by Jack, Amy had no idea. That wasn't Tim Fleming's style.

"What do you think they'll say?"

Amy thought for a moment. "I don't know. Lou will be through the roof, probably Grandpa too."

"What about Tim?" He was the one Ty was most worried about, his father-in-law not hiding the fact that he still didn't think Ty had what it took to support Amy. Telling him the were now expecting a baby would probably only add fuel to Tim's fire.

"Well, he might go through the roof in a different way," Amy laughed softly, turning to face Ty an cuddle up to him.

Ty took Amy in his arms as she rested her head on his chest, placing a kiss in her hair and running his hand along her shoulder. He was quiet for a moment, listening to Amy's content sigh as she closed her eyes again. "You don't think he'll try to kill me do you?" Ty asked after a pause.

Amy smiled to herself, tipping her head back to look up at her husband. "I guess we'll find out. If he tries, I'll protect you." Leaning up, Amy pressed a kiss to Ty's lips, smiling when they parted and Ty moved to reconnect them again. His hands roamed her body, finding the end of her shirt and sliding beneath it to once again run his fingertips over her soft skin.

"You know, this is what got us here," Amy murmured against his lips, speaking between kisses but not stopping. She shifted into a better position on Ty, easing her leg over his waist.

"Well at least now we don't have to worry," he replied after a long series of fiery kisses.

Ty's hand glided up Amy's back, his fingers dragging along the arc of her spine, his arm tugging her shirt along the higher he went. Amy's hand cradled his face, her thumb running along the morning scruff of his jaw. She pushed herself up with her other arm when Ty pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor, her leg sliding further over him until she was straddling his waist. Ty was able to enjoy the lovely view of his wife for a brief moment before she was leaning down and capturing his lips again, her arms reaching up to cradle his head between them. Her fingers stroking his hair made his spine tingle pleasantly and his hands begin to explore her body more bravely.

"You guys up yet,? Getting pretty late." Caleb pulled the door open without knocking and poked his head in. "Oh, my bad."

"Caleb!" Amy squealed, falling off of Ty and pulling the blanket up to cover her chest.

"Get out, man!" Ty shouted, waving his arm toward the door for emphasis.

"Well, sorry. You should have hung a hat on the door or something. Let me know when you're done." Caleb was grinning to himself as he backed out of the trailer and shut the door.

"Ty! It's almost eight, why didn't the alarm go off?!" Amy exclaimed after getting a glimpse of the clock, scrambling to get out of bed and get dressed.

"I shut it off. I wanted you to get some rest." Ty sat there as Amy climbed over him and snatched her shirt off the floor, agitated that she was going to be late.

"I have a full schedule today and I promised Lou I'd be there to help her with breakfast for the guests at the dude ranch!"

"Lou will be fine with Georgie helping her."

"I have to feed the horses. It's not so simple as just walking down to the barn anymore." Amy peered out of the little window to see Caleb stretched out on the couch again before she started stripping out of her pajamas and stepping into jeans.

"Jack is there. Besides, it won't kill them to eat a little bit later than usual." Ty tried to reason with her, but knew it would be no use.

"That's not the point. This is my _job_, Ty. You'd be mad at me if I shut the alarm off on you," she argued, sitting on the recliner at the table and shoving her feet into her boots.

"No, I wouldn't. I'd appreciate your concern and embrace it."

Amy paused, shooting Ty a look. "No, you wouldn't."

"Okay, maybe I wouldn't. But your the pregnant one who needs the rest." Ty got up, reaching out to stop Amy from rushing outside. "I just want you to take it easy."

"I'll be fine, Ty. Let me set my own limits."

Ty studied Amy for a moment. "Just don't set them too high." Though he knew this wouldn't be the only time he went over her head to get her to rest. He knew his wife, and knew how stubborn she could be once she set her mind to something.

"I won't. Now can I please go to work?" She raised her brow, tipping her head toward him with a little smile, using her powers of persuasion with a little kiss.

"Okay. Just remember what I said, or I'll lock you in this trailer for the next nine months." Ty smiled then, tipping his head to kiss her as Caleb banged on the door.

"Come on, guys, finish it up already."

"I thought you were going to talk to him," Amy complained in a low voice, stepping away from Ty and reaching for her hat.

"I know, I will. I promise." There really was no choice in the matter anymore. It was amazing they managed to have a private moment to even get pregnant with the way Caleb just barged in without bothering to knock first.

"Well, you better do it sooner rather than later because this trailer is going to get cramped real fast once the baby comes." Amy continued to keep her voice low, knowing the trailer wasn't completely sound proof and Caleb tended to have supersonic hearing. It was already too small for the two of them. She didn't know how they would ever fit a baby, plus everything they require, into it without getting rid of their own stuff.

Ty rubbed his hands over his face. "I know. I'll talk to him tonight after dinner."

"Good, cause if you don't I will." Amy leaned in for a last parting kiss, then stepped out of the trailer to start her day in a much less thrilling way than she anticipated.


	4. Chapter 4

"Are you ready for this?" Ty asked in a low voice, standing beside Amy at the kitchen sink as they washed up for dinner. They hadn't had much time to prepare how they were going to make their big announcement, both being too busy at their respective jobs to communicate even through text all day. But they agreed that one way or another, they were going to do it tonight at dinner before it was put off to the point where it just festered and leaked on its own in a bad way.

Passing the dish towel she used to dry her hands, Amy raised her brow to her husband. "Are you?" She knew he was worried more about Tim's reaction than anyone else's, seeing as his father-in-law still seemed to have a bone to pick with Ty even though he'd been married to Amy for almost a year. It was true they were still stuck in Caleb's old trailer, with Caleb still living out on the couch, but they were still trying to find their own place, a bigger place, preferably a small farm to start. Right now anywhere bigger than that tiny trailer would do, though. They wanted, and now needed, space to start their family and begin their truly adult lives.

Ty shrugged, leaning back against the counter as everyone started taking their usual places at the dinner table. "Gotta get it over with some time, right? Might as well be now." After nearly ten years of dealing with Tim Fleming, Ty knew he could hold his own, but this was a little bit of a different situation and it wasn't just Amy he was expected to provide for and take care of now.

"Come on, you guys!" Georgie called, forcing Ty and Amy to exchange a last look before joining the rest of their family at the dinner table.

Serving bowls made their rounds as everyone filled their plates with salad and Lou's shepherd's pie, which had come a very long way since she first made it after coming home from New York. It was actually edible now and even enjoyable when she moderated the salt. However, when it came to Amy, she hesitated with scooping it onto her plate. Her stomach started to turn sour from the strong odor that attacked her senses.

"Amy?" Ty asked quietly, noticing the way his wife was taking in slow breaths, swallowing hard and looking as if she were about to throw up.

"Something wrong?" Jack asked, drawing attention from the rest of the table to Amy as she still held the bowl in her hands and tried to force herself to scoop some of the food out and pass it along, but she was stuck just trying to hold her stomach down.

"Come on, Amy, it's not that bad. Just eat around the crunchy part," Georgie joked, receiving a narrow-eyed look from her mom.

"Excuse me," Amy finally managed, handing the bowl off to Ty and sliding out of her chair to get to the bathroom, shutting the door fast and hard behind her before she retched into the toilet.

Ty looked down at the bowl in his hands when the eyes of the table that had been on Amy turned immediately to him, looking for some kind of explanation for Amy's strange behavior.

"What's wrong with her?" Tim asked, almost accusingly, leaving Ty to decide if he should just get it out or wait for Amy to come back, if she even would.

"I think that's something Amy should tell you," he answered slowly, though knew that wouldn't be the right thing to say to Tim.

"What's that supposed to mean, 'Amy should tell me'? What's going on?" Tim turned his body toward Ty, his chest expanding as he sat up straighter like an animal preparing his defenses.

"I'm just saying-" Ty began when Lou cut him off. She'd been staring at him hard, with acute interest since Amy left the table, an inkling of a thought taking over her mind.

"Oh, would you just stop, Dad. I'm going to check on her." Pulling her napkin from her lap, Lou left the table and stopped in front of the bathroom door to knock gently. "Amy? Can I come in?"

With one hand holding her hair out of her face and the other serving as a pillow for her face against the cold porcelain of the toilet, Amy took deep breaths after having lost the ability as she got sick. She closed her eyes when she heard Lou at the door, but allowed her to come in anyway. She reached out to flush the toilet quick and try to regain some of her dignity by pushing herself up from hanging over the toilet, sitting back against the tub as Lou stepped into the small bathroom and closed the door.

"Are you okay?" Her eyes went from the toilet to her sister, full of concern but there was also a bit of hidden excitement in them.

Amy nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak right away. She ran her hand through her hair, pushing her bangs out of her face as Lou came lean on the vanity in front of her.

"You've been acting weird lately. We've all noticed it, except maybe dad but, he's usually clueless to social cues, so…" Lou offered a little smile, seeing one find Amy's lips as well as she looked up at her sister. There was a pause as Lou became serious again and studied Amy carefully. "Come on, Amy: the fatigue, nausea, sensitivity to smell… you're pregnant," Lou deduced, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and to someone who went through it, it probably was because they already knew what to look for.

Since Lou came to the correct conclusion on her own, all Amy was left to respond with was just a small shrug, a smile still pressing at her lips when she saw Lou's eyes widen, as if expecting a debate and Amy to deny it. "Oh my God, you are?!" When Amy nodded, Lou squealed with delight, causing everyone out in the dining room to turn their heads toward the bathroom, then once again look at Ty.

Lou dropped to her knees beside of Amy and wrapped her arms around her sister in utter excitement. "I knew it! I mean I suspected it for a while, but… ugh, I can't believe I'm going to be an aunt. This is so great. I knew you guys would come around eventually. I was waiting for this day since you got married."

Amy was just left to grin at her sister as she rambled a mile a minute, not even pausing for a breath until she just had to stop and take in the moment again. "You're going to tell everyone tonight? Please tell me you are because I don't think this is a secret I can keep." Lou kept a lot of secrets, the biggest being Ty's intentions of proposing to Amy and then the fact that Amy found the ring and knew about it all along. That had been the most tormenting few months of her life. Any time Amy or Ty would come through the door, she'd be on the alert, expecting the big announcement and would just deflate in her disappointment when it didn't come.

"If I can get back out there and Ty hasn't already. It's not exactly how we planned for things to go, but… really none of this was." They hadn't really had a plan set in stone aside from finding their own place, which proved to be quite the challenge. But now it seemed that lack of a plan was going to need to turn into something different soon before they had a baby in their arms and no idea what to do with it.

"You guys are going to be fine. I know it. Maybe you don't have a plan now, but look at Peter and I. We had plans, all of which fell apart and now we're still here trying to find a new one. It's not easy, but we all know nothing in life is. You'll figure it out, together. That's all that matters." Lou told her quietly, reaching up to place her hand on Amy's head.

"Thanks, Lou." Grateful for the vote of confidence from her sister, Amy pulled her into a hug and held it for a few long moments.

"Hey, that's what sisters are for. And for giving you all kinds of pregnancy advice and tips: like buying antacids in bulk cause, believe me, you're going to need them." They both laughed quietly at that, but Amy knew she was going to be running to Lou for all of those bits of advice.

"I guess we should get back out there," Amy suggested after another moment, reaching up for the edge of the tub so she could get to her feet.


	5. Chapter 5

"Are you going to answer me, or just sit there and continue to hope Amy comes back soon to take the pressure off?" Tim was losing patience at Ty's avoidance of telling them what was going on with his daughter. It was obviously something and something that Ty knew or had been let in on - because it was his fault.

It was taking a lot of will power right now for Ty to maintain his patience and keep his mouth shut and not blurt out that Amy was pregnant without her present. This wasn't only his news to tell and didn't feel right doing it without her there. But if Tim didn't stop, he would just to shut him up.

"That's enough, Tim. I'm sure Ty would tell us what's going on if he thought he should." Jack jumped in to Ty's defense.

"He should." Tim continued to fix Ty with a hard look, giving him "the stare" in attempt to intimidate him into talking. Unfortunately, Ty was immune to most of Tim's tricks and ignored him.

"Like I said, I don't think it's something I should say without Amy here. It's really her news to give." Yes, Ty was the one who fathered the child and it wasn't only Amy's baby, but in his mind she was the one who had all of the hard work ahead of her in carrying and, eventually, giving birth to this child. She should be the one with the privilege of telling everyone.

"News?" Jack was looking at him now in a similar way that Lou had, narrowing his eyes to study Ty as he leaned back in his chair.

"Well, she's not pregnant so, what other news-" Tim stopped when he saw Ty's eyes drop to the table in a very tell-tale way. "No. She's not… is she?" Tim looked from Ty to Jack who was still watching Ty. He lifted his gaze but was avoiding looking directly at both men who sat at either end of the table, Ty stuck there in the middle facing Georgie who was just looking back and forth among them all.

"Wait, Amy's pregnant like…with a… baby?" She was both stunned and awed, her brown gaze wide as it drifted back to Ty who took a breath and looked up toward the ceiling as if somehow he'd receive assistance from the big man upstairs, or at least his prayers would be heard an He'd send Amy back out.

"Yes, Georgie." Eyes whipped to Amy as she appeared from the bathroom with Lou who was still all smiles. The girls came back to the table, Lou retaking her seat but Amy remained standing beside her chair to address the table as a whole. "Well, I guess the cat's out of the bag now but, yes. Ty and I are expecting a baby." She turned her eyes down to smile lovingly at her husband, placing her hand in his when he reached out to take hers and slipped back into her chair. Ty took her hand over into his lap, giving it a gentle squeeze as they took in reactions from around the table.

"Well, that's some fantastic news. Congratulations you two," Jack laughed softly with joy, getting up out of his chair to hug Amy, planting a kiss on her hair and patting his hand against Ty's shoulder.

"Thanks, Jack. Or should I say, great-grandpa," he teased with a grin, getting a chuckle out of Jack but also a reprimanding finger wave.

"Now don't be doing that to me yet, I might be great-grandpa, but I've still got a lot of years left in me." Shaking his head, but grinning widely, Jack retook his seat.

"Now wait a minute, hold on here." Tim interrupted, everyone's smiles falling and turning serious as they directed their attention to him. He seemed almost dumbfounded, like he was having a hard time wrapping his mind around this breaking news. "Pregnant? You two haven't even been married a year yet and you're already having a baby? I take it this wasn't planned."

"Dad-" Amy started, but Tim cut her off, directing his attention and fire to Ty.

"No, wait, you're still living in the trailer, aren't you? Or, have you found a new place to live, cause I haven't heard anything about it. I sure hope you don't plan on trying to move back in here or else you're going to need to build an extension, Jack."

"Now hold on there, Tim. Don't start jumping down their throats without having all of the facts. Amy and Ty are married adults and more than capable of handling what goes on in their lives."

"Come on, Jack. I'm just pointing out the reality of things. They can't expect to find a new place to live and pay for all of the medical expenses and care Amy and this baby are going to need, plus all their regular bills. A-and what about Amy's work with the horses? She's just going to give that all up to have this child? And there is no way in hell they're going to be able to live with a baby in that trailer. Especially not with O'Dell still squatting on their couch. He's certainly no babysitter."

"Can you two please not talk like we aren't sitting right here?!" Amy exclaimed, finally fed up with listening to her father and grandpa bicker.

"It's okay, Amy." Ty rubbed his hand along her arm as he fixed Tim with an unappreciative frown. "You're right, Tim. I won't lie to you and say we have a plan because we don't. This pregnancy wasn't planned but that doesn't mean we're not going to accept and embrace the fact that we're going to be parents and there is going to be a new member added to this family in a few months. No, we haven't found a new place and yes, we are aware - more than you know - that it would be difficult to raise a child in the trailer, not completely impossible. But what you need to understand, Tim, is that it is no longer your job to concern yourself with how I take care of my wife and child."

"It is. It is my job because no matter whose wife she is, Amy is still my daughter. I have every right to make it my concern, especially when it comes to her well-being."

"You don't think I'm good enough for her." Ty said in a flat tone, not as a question but a statement. A fact.

There was a brief pause.

"No. Ty, I don't. I know how much you love Amy and Amy loves you, though I can't figure out why…"

"Dad, that's enough!" Lou slammed her glass down on the table, water splashing out on the table cloth.

Tim ignored her. "But I don't see you making any effort to give her what she needs."

"You mean what _you _think she deserves. That's not for you to say, Tim and, frankly, your opinion isn't welcome or wanted. We're going to do what we think if best for us and our family, no matter what you think we should be doing. Just because you screwed up with Marion doesn't mean you can make manipulate our lives to make up for your mistakes. It was you who didn't give Marion what she needed, not me. So stop projecting your guilt and accept that you were a shitty husband and father and-"

Ty didn't get the chance to finish, or even duck, before Tim's fist collided with his face.


	6. Chapter 6

In all reality, Ty should have seen it coming before he did. He was verbally attacking the man and outright condemning him for his past mistakes.

Tim was up out of his seat after hitting Ty, bringing the whole table up with him as he grabbed handfuls of Ty's shirt tight in his fists. Ty managed to get his hands between Tim's to knock his arms away then gave him a hard shove in the chest to drive him back and create enough space to put some power behind his arm as he drove his fist hard into Tim's jaw.

"Stop it! Both of you!" Amy shouted. Being closest, she was the first to get herself between them, both Tim and Ty hesitating to throw any more punches with Amy there in the line of fire. They just continued their non-verbal assault by piercing each other with their enraged glares.

"Ty, please." Amy reached out to him, carefully wrapping her hand around his arm, still poised and ready to hit Tim as many times as necessary to get the point across. But Amy's voice broke through the rage, his eyes dropped from Tim to hers, air heaving into his chest. He lowered his arm slowly, his hand still folded into a fist, jaw popping as he clenched his teeth to get control of himself.

"What is the matter with you?" Amy turned on her father, feeling anger, and even hurt, surging through her.

"Me? Did you hear the way he just talked to me? You're loving husband just called me a shitty father." Tim rolled his shoulders, straightening his shirt and getting the little bulge that was pulled up tucked back into his jeans. He was still hitting Ty with his irate stare, but kept his distance, even backing up a step or two.

"Well, Dad, you certainly weren't the greatest before mom died and you aren't much better right now either," Amy scolded him, not even feeling the least bit guilty at the slightly wounded look that crossed Tim's face and made his scowl falter.

"Amy…" Lou started gently, not wanting there to be an even wider rift created between them all. Amy was upset, everyone was by Tim's harsh words by some degree, but Ty ripping open those old wounds in Tim made him no better.

"So you're just going to defend him?"

"He's my husband, Dad."

"I'm your father. I've always been your father, whether I've been there or not."

"But you haven't been there! You missed ten years of my childhood and then spent the last eight of them pushing… just… pushing for more and more out of me. I know you want what is best for me, but you don't know what that is anymore, Dad. I'm _happy_. Why can't that be enough?" Amy's voice grew quieter and gentler as she poured herself to her father, watching his expression too start to soften.

"That's enough for you? It's not enough, Amy. I know it's not. The further along in this pregnancy you get, the more you're going to realize just how much you're going to have to give up to have this family. You're not going to be able to climb into that round pen with a damaged horse and chase him around, or even ride for that matter. It takes a lot to raise a family, Amy. Are you really sure you're ready to give up what you love?"

There were some instances in his little speech that Amy was ready to cut in and once again put him in his place. Tim didn't know what it took to raise a family because he missed out on a lot of his children's lives. It might not be entirely too late for Shane, but he was certainly old enough to remember life without Tim and living the lie Miranda fed to him in his younger years. It seemed everyone thought better about bringing up Shane right now though, not finding it appropriate to bring him in to this argument.

He was right about one thing, though, and that was whether or not Amy was ready to back off from her work with troubled horses. It was dangerous enough for her to be with them, and that risk was doubled now that she was carrying a child. She knew Ty wouldn't allow her to continue with that work for long, if at all anymore, but if Amy had her way she'd do it until it was physically impossible anymore.

"Working with horses isn't the only thing I love anymore, Dad. You know I'd never give that up, but Ty and I want a family. It was going to happen eventually, why not now?"

Ty jumped in then. "We know this isn't the most ideal situation or best time-"

"Oh, you think?"

"But…" Ty continued, ignoring him again. "I'm not in school anymore, Scott's hired me full-time, and with Mrs. Bell and Wade covering my tuition I don't have any student loans to pay off. We will figure it out, Tim. I can promise you that."

"Oh, you can?"

"Yes," Amy insisted. "You used to expect me to carry all of this responsibility with school, and Storm, and show jumping and working with the other horses, but now you don't believe Ty and I together can make this work?"

"I just think you have more to do with your life before starting a family, Amy. There's so much more out there in the world for you to take on. But… you obviously have your minds made up so…." Tim raised his arms in surrender, grabbing his hat and setting it onto his head.

"Is that what it was like for you?!" Amy was again raising her voice, suddenly under the assumption that Tim felt like this baby was going to ruin her life. "Did mom getting pregnant take away all of your hopes and dreams? You sure have a lot of belt buckles for your life getting ruined."

"No.. Amy… honey that's not what I meant…"

"It sure sounded like it, Tim." Jack chimed in rather harshly.

Tim rubbed his hands over his face. "That's not… the happiest days of my life were when you girls were born. But, you're right, I was gone… a lot. On the road still trying to fulfill my own dreams and I regret that, I do. Which is why I don't want that to happen to you. You have plenty of time to have children. Use this time to reach your highest potential, take that road trip to Vegas you and Ty were talking about, expand your clinics… find your dream ranch. Don't put it all on hold so soon."

Amy's harsh words died again from her lips as her face softened and she took in what Tim said, shaking her head slowly. "It's too late, Dad. We're having this baby."


	7. Chapter 7

After the disastrous dinner that resulted in Tim just leaving, feeling no longer welcome, no one was really ready to sit back down and continue eating except Georgie who remained at the table with Lou and Katie piling shepherd's pie into her mouth.

Amy wandered out onto the porch and sat on the bench, rubbing her hands over her face in frustration. Of course Tim would be the one to make this whole pregnancy into a negative, pointing out all of the worries and concerns everyone was probably thinking anyway. Someone had to be the bad guy, though, and it was usually Tim. He played it well with making pretty much everyone at the table irritated with him. He did mean well and Amy understood that eventually, but that didn't mean she still forgave him for making Ty out to be an inadequate husband and making it sound like this pregnancy was just going to turn into a huge regret. Amy had been worried about it in the beginning when that stick first turned blue, but after telling Ty and talking with him a little bit she had started feeling better and excited about finally starting a family with him. Now, Tim succeeded in making those doubts creep back into her mind.

Ty stood at the kitchen window helping Lou clear the table, looking out to see Amy rub her face then fold her legs up to her chest and stare out toward the barn.

"Don't worry about Tim. He'll come around. You know how he is." Jack appeared next to Ty, setting a few plates on the counter then looking out at Amy as well.

"Yeah. I just wish he would have surprised us all and been supportive, even excited about being a grand father again. Now… I'm just afraid Amy's going to start having doubts and rethinking this whole thing. I don't want her looking back after we have this baby and regret not waiting." They didn't have much of a choice in the matter since they hadn't been planning to get pregnant right now, which is what worried Ty most. Unless they went against all they believed in and had an abortion, they were stuck having this baby. Ty knew they wouldn't get rid of it just to make their lives easier. The guilt would eat both of them alive inside. He just didn't want Amy thinking she had no choice, which she very well might be.

"Well, all I know is that no matter what you decide, or what Tim thinks, you'll always have my support. And if you need the space, well I suppose I could take Tim's advice and tack on another wing to the house." Jack reached out to rest his hand on Ty's shoulder with a reassuring smile, giving him a squeeze before heading back into the dining room.

After grabbing his still full plate, Ty joined Amy on the porch. He paused in front of her, offering her the plate. "You should eat something."

Amy looked at the shepherd's pie and felt her stomach churn all over again, making a face of disgust and turning away. "Oh.. not that, please. Just looking at it makes me feel sick." Smelling it would probably make her throw up again and she really didn't want to do that.

"So this is what pregnancy is like, huh? Should be interesting," he smiled looking down at the plate. There was definitely going to be a lot to learn.

Ty moved to set it on the little table beside the bench then slid next to his wife and positioned his body to keep the plate from her view. "We'll find you something else later." She smiled softly at him then they both turned their eyes out toward the slowly setting sun for a few moments, lost in their own thoughts.

"Ty… do you think maybe we're rushing things?" Amy asked finally, a crease in her brow as she turned to look at him.

Sighing, Ty glanced down at the old wooden boards of the porch, taking a moment to choose his words wisely, but instead just reciprocated the question, unsure of how he wanted to answer. "Do you?"

Lowering her gaze, Amy considered the question carefully. "I don't know. What Dad said made sense. I mean, what am I going to do about the horses? I know it's too dangerous to work with them, but we both know it'll be too hard for me to just quit."

"But it'll only be temporary, just until you can have the baby."

"Yeah, but Ty, babies need a lot of care and attention. With you working full-time at the clinic, I won't be able to leave the baby alone to work with the horses and I won't be able to bring him with me."

Ty studied Amy, taking in her reasoning and trying to think of something to ease her concerns. He supposed this was going to be a conversation that came up between them eventually, but thanks to Tim it came up sooner rather than later. Ty couldn't yet decide if that was a good or a bad thing when they had still been wallowing in their happiness.

"Him?" Ty grinned, catching her use of a gender identifier and unable to ignore it.

"Or her. Ty, come on, I'm being serious."

"I know. I'm just… I don't think we're rushing into anything. Maybe it wasn't the right time, but that doesn't mean we can't make it the right time. We still have time to get a plan in order. But I don't want you to think you have no choice in this. It's your decision more than it is mine. And I'll stick with you, whatever you want to do." Reaching out, Ty took Amy's hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"So you think we should have this baby?" Amy asked, knowing that the idea of an abortion wasn't really something that settled comfortably in her mind.

The way Amy asked that question made Ty a little bit uneasy, realizing what sort of dangerous territory they were falling into. If she wasn't already pregnant this conversation would be so much easier. "Like I said, I think it's your decision to make."

"Well, can you at least tell me what you think?"

"I already told you, Amy. I think if we do have this baby that we'll be okay. We'll figure it out and make it work."

"Yeah, but do you want to? Are you ready to be a father?" Amy's voice became more pushy, demanding an answer and not another attempt at evasion.

"I…" Ty sighed, blinking in thought as he looked away from his wife again. "Amy I don't want to push you into-"

"Oh, so you don't think _I'm_ ready for this." Amy's harsh tone left Ty with a sense of dread. He didn't like where this was heading.

"No, Amy, it's just that everything was fine this morning and then as soon as your dad mentioned all of that stuff about what else was out there waiting for you, all the sudden you seem…"

"What?" Amy dared him, fixing him with a hard frown.

"You seem like you're having second thoughts." Ty finished slowly, forcing his voice to remain calm even though Amy was getting worked up.

"Maybe I am." Planting her feet on the floor Amy got up and crossed the porch to the stairs.

Ty looked up at her, startled, watching her walk away. "You're not thinking about… Amy…" He quickly got up to follow her, catching her before she hit the gate. "Amy, look at me. Are you really considering…"

Breath heavy in her chest, Amy stared down at the path. Her mind was swimming. She had so many emotions running wild through her she didn't know which to settle on, or which would help her put her thoughts together. "No… I don't know…" Running her hand through her hair, Amy turned headed for the barn, needing space and just time alone to think.

Ty was frozen in place, watching her go, confused and feeling his heart sink at the thought of Amy really thinking about ending this pregnancy. In a matter of minutes their excitement and happiness came completely unraveled, leaving them both questioning if they really were ready. It had felt like they were. Ty started to feel an eagerness to have that baby in his arms he'd never felt before when he and Amy were just kicking the ideas around, having fun picturing a life for themselves. Now that it had been handed to them and they were given the opportunity to make something of it, it just fell apart before it could really begin.


	8. Chapter 8

The rest of the evening, and even the ride home had been shrouded in a silence that hadn't come between Amy and Ty in quite a long time. Ty usually welcomed a chance to think, but now he was afraid of what his wife was thinking about as he shot glances in her direction throughout the drive. She stared out of the passenger window the whole time, Ty not seeing her turn her head once until they pulled in front of the trailer. Then all she did was undo her seat belt and move to open the door. Ty reached out quick to stop her.

"Amy, wait a second," he started, his eyes searching for her gaze that remained averted to the floorboards.

"I'm tired, Ty. I just want to go to bed," Amy told him in a low voice, glancing at his hand on her arm, waiting for him to let go so she could get out.

"We need to talk about this." Ty really hated having to go to bed with this between them, leaving everything unsaid for a restless night of drowning in his own thoughts and concerns. Whether she was tired or not, Ty knew Amy would experience the same insomnia that didn't even seem like it was necessary if they could just get through this now.

"Not tonight. Please, Ty. I really don't want to think about it anymore today." As if that would happen, and they both knew it. Amy just didn't want to be put on the spot when the discussion resulted in a demand for some kind of answer that she wasn't ready to give.

"Okay, but do you still want me to talk to Caleb?" Whether they were having a baby or not, Ty knew Caleb couldn't live with them forever, but it seemed like the baby would be the best excuse Ty could give without outright telling his best friend to hit the road because he was becoming a bother.

"Do what you want." Amy pulled her arm away from Ty then and climbed out of the truck to head inside and get ready for bed, leaving Ty to sit in the truck and stare after her.

He sighed, resting his arms on the steering wheel and bowing his head, shaking it slowly in despair. He should have told Amy right out he wanted to have this baby and was even excited for it, but he figured she'd already known that from how he'd been acting over the last week since she told him: rubbing her belly and whispering "momma" in her ear as he talked about - and to - their little one. Even she seemed excited and ready for this next step in their lives.

Looking up toward the trailer where Caleb had just emerged carrying a couple beers, Ty no longer saw that happy mother-to-be, nor did he see that expecting glow that had been radiating off his wife this morning. "Thanks, Tim." Ty murmured, finally climbing out of the truck when Caleb approached.

"Something happen between you and Amy? She barely said two words to me." Caleb handed Ty one of the beers he'd snagged before Amy kicked him out so she could change and get ready for bed.

Twisting the cap off, Ty chucked it toward the fire pit and took a long swallow, giving himself a chance to think before having to answer. "Uh, yeah but it's a little complicated."

"This doesn't have anything to do with that Prince guy again, does it? I thought we were done with him."

"No." Ty shook his head, glad that wasn't the issue but compared to this was wondering if maybe Ahmed would have been easier to deal with, maybe even Chase Powers.

Ty stared down at the beer bottle he held, turning it in his hands to absently read the label for no reason other than to give himself another chance to get his thoughts in order. "Amy's pregnant," he answered finally.

"Dude, you're kidding me!" Caleb said after a pause to let it sink in, reaching out to give Ty a congratulatory slap on the back. "Well that's great, man! Isn't it?" he asked then, realizing Ty wasn't acting as excited as a father-to-be probably should.

"Well it would be, or it was, but then Tim had to go and open his big mouth and now… well let's just say Amy's not so sure anymore."

"What do you mean? She's not thinking about an abortion is she?"

Ty shrugged, sipping his beer. "I don't know, she won't talk about it. It definitely sounded like she'd considered it, though."

"Well, you can't let her go through with it. You have some say in this, you know. That's your kid too."

"It's Amy's decision. I told her we'd find a way to make it work, but that didn't seem like enough of an answer for her. She's thinking about missing out on her clinics and having to drop clients for a while to get through the pregnancy and actually be a mom."

"But you're her husband now, not just a sperm donor. Plus, that's what moms do. What did she expect, to get a nanny and pawn the kid off when she got tired of it like she did with Katie?" Ty regretted venting to Caleb about that now, realizing it was going to hang over Amy's head now that motherhood was on the table and she'd had little interest in even babysitting her niece for a weekend.

"Give her a break, man. Her dad just laid into us pretty thick about it. He made it pretty clear he didn't think this baby was a good idea right now." Ty had hoped they were since passed caring about Tim's opinion, but it still seemed he had some influence after all, much to Ty's dismay.

"Amy's a married woman now. She should be looking to you for those sorts of opinions." Caleb frowned, sipping his beer and leaning next to Ty against the truck.

"I know, but it's Tim. He's still looking to make up for lost time, I guess. I don't know. It doesn't really matter the reason, but that it seemed to hit Amy pretty hard."

"So, what are you going to do?"

Ty took a moment to run that question through his mind, shaking his head slowly as he stared down toward the grass. "I don't know. Leave it go for tonight, I guess."

"Well, you better not leave it go too long, or there's going to be another person in this trailer and we're already close quarters as it is."

"Yeah, about that…"


	9. Chapter 9

Amy pulled down the shades of the trailer's windows after checking to make sure Ty and Caleb were still outside before she turned and went to change for bed. Her movements were slow and deliberate, her mind straining to think about just changing her clothes instead of the other place it wanted to wander. Amy knew she and Ty needed to discuss what happened at dinner, or most notably after, but she really just didn't want to right now. It had been a long, and stressful evening. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and just sleep it off. Unfortunately, even she knew it couldn't be that easy. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that as soon as Ty came inside and they were again alone, he'd be coaxing her into that dreaded discussion. She just hoped that Caleb kept him occupied long enough for Amy to crawl into bed and pretend to be asleep when he did return.

Of course she couldn't get so lucky. Amy was just crawling beneath the blankets when Ty entered the trailer, his eyes immediately finding her on their bed. Amy had tried to avoid his gaze but she'd been too late to look away.

"You never did eat anything. Aren't you hungry?" Ty asked, deliberately refraining from mentioning the big elephant in the room. He didn't want to go to bed in an argument with Amy. No matter who you were, that was never a good thing. He just wished they could have the same system Caleb and Ashley used to that no matter how bad the fight was, in the morning they would just start over like it never happened. Wouldn't that be nice. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be that simple, so Ty was going to make up for it now by playing nice instead of further agitating his wife.

Amy watched him for a few long moments, trying to gauge his angle, deciding not to push her luck and just shaking her head slowly. "No, I'm okay." She paused, moving her gaze from Ty as he sat in the recliner at the table to get off his boots. "It probably won't stay down anyway." Not much did lately.

"Oh. You should have something in your stomach, though. Some saltines at least. They're safe, right?" Ty got up after kicking off his boots and reaching into the cabinet for a sleeve of crackers, offering it to Amy.

"Uh, yeah. Most of the time. Thanks." She reached out to take the sleeve, her fingers brushing lightly over his, both of them pausing with their hands still wrapped around the crackers before Ty relented his grip.

Amy lowered her arm back to the bed, turning the sleeve around to find the seam and pulled it apart to open it, taking out a cracker and bringing it to her lips for a small bite. "So, what were you and Caleb talking about?" She had a hunch she could guess correctly.

Ty went back to close the cabinet then pulled off his shirt to toss in the laundry pile before grabbing his tooth brush from the cabinet above the sink. "Uh, well, I tried to break the news gently about him finding a new place to stay."

Amy bit into the cracker again. "How did he take it?"

Ty shrugged, shoving his toothbrush into his mouth and scrubbing vigorously. "He'll get over it," he mumbled through a mouth full of foam.

"So, what's he going to do?"

Ty spat in the sink, rinsing the brush off and sticking it back into the cabinet with the toothpaste. "I don't know. See if Jack will let him have the loft again for a while, I guess, since no one else is using it. Not sure he wants to be sucked back into doing the farm chores though to pay for his keep."

"Well he is Lou's trail boss. I mean that's enough of a chore just dealing with her on a daily basis. And Nicole isn't much better."

"Yeah, but I don't think he wants to be the new guy in the loft." Ty crawled over Amy to take his place in the bed beside the wall.

Glancing back at her husband as he slid down beneath the sheets and laid his head on the pillow, Amy smiled softly at him. "You'll always be the guy in the loft to me."

Ty returned her light smile, folding his arms back behind his head. "Seems so long ago now, doesn't it?"

Moving her crackers onto the floor, Amy slid down beside Ty. "Yeah, a lot happened in that loft."

Ty stared up at the ceiling with a reminiscent smile, nodding. "A lot of memorable moments that's for sure. I kind of miss it at times."

"I know I missed you being there after you moved out here when Caleb left. I felt spoiled having you so close all of the time. But I guess you being so far away made me realize how much I just wanted to be with you." Amy reached out to place her hand on his chest, Ty pulling one of his own from behind his head to take hers in it.

"And now you get to deal with me every moment of every day," he grinned, bringing her hand to his lips to kiss the back of her fingers."How do you feel about that now?"

"Well, not every moment with our crazy schedules." Amy smiled softly again, shifting herself over to drop her head against his shoulder. "But, I like it. I like knowing I have you to wake up to every morning and that I get to fall asleep with you every night. I like that certainty that now matter what else happens in the day it will always begin and end the same." Amy paused, her smiled faltering a little as she adjusted her head to lower her face from Ty's view. "Especially right now when everything just seems so… confusing."

Ty lowered Amy's hand from his lips, letting it rest again on his chest as he ran his fingers delicately along her forearm. He pressed his lips together, listening to her talk and wondering if this was her bringing up the baby discussion for him to run with or if he should just stick to his plan of letting it go for tonight. There was definitely a tension hanging in the air from words left unsaid, but right now Ty would take this safe talk over getting Amy upset again right now. "Yeah, but it didn't start out like this." Ty pointed out gently, cautiously.

"And what does that mean?" Amy's voice found that affronted tone as she lifted her head from Ty and propped herself up to look at him with a small frown.

Ty knew he should have just kept his mouth shut, but was now pushing himself up on his elbows. "I'm just wondering what happened to the wife I woke up to this morning. The one that was excited and happy to be called 'mommy' and finally get to tell the family we were having a baby." Well, since the mood had just been blown, might as well run with it.

"I don't know, Ty. I'm still happy… I-"

Ty raised his brow at her. "Are you? Because you sure don't seem it if you're talking about abortion."

Tears filled Amy's eyes as she pushed herself up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. "I wasn't…" She sniffed, pushing her hair behind her ear as she bit her upper lip and tried to make sense of the thoughts that raced through her brain all night. "I wasn't seriously considering it. I just… I guess I hadn't really thought about how indefinitely our lives would change and… I had a moment of uncertainty and doubt."

Ty slowly sat up and turned on the bed to look at his wife. "So you weren't think about ending this pregnancy?" he asked, just wanting to have some clarity.

Amy whipped her head around, shaking it in disbelief. "No, Ty. You really thought I could do that? Just… get rid of our baby because I was afraid of how my life would change?"

"Well, you sounded pretty clear that you were having second thoughts to the whole thing and when you wouldn't talk to me about it I just figured…"

Amy turned around, reaching out to gently cradle Ty's face in her hand. "There's nothing I want more than to have a family with you Ty Borden, you know that. But my whole life has been centered around helping horses and it's just a little overwhelming and even scary to think that I may have to give that up, even if it's just for a little while. And my dad was just bringing out all of those questions I'd had floating in my mind but never wanted to face."

There was a relief that flooded through Ty as he listened to Amy assure him that she didn't want to get rid of their baby. He could understand her uncertainty, though, even if he didn't think she should have to feel that way. "Your dad did kind of lay it on pretty thick."

"He just wants to see me reach my potential. But…" Amy paused, smiling gently at Ty as her eyes lowered from his face between them. "I meant it when I said I was happy." Her gaze rose to catch his again, shaking her head slowly. "I've accomplished so much at such a young age. It was really overwhelming and stressful at times, especially with my dad there pushing me to do better and to keep myself in the limelight. But you know what, I never wanted to be in that light. It just sort of happened and then suddenly it wasn't just about helping the horse anymore. I think I'm ready to just step back and slow down, get back to my mother's roots of where Heartland began…before that whole "Miracle Girl" video."

Ty was smiling, his hand raising to again take Amy's, pulling it down away from his face and reaching up to wipe at the tears that had spilled over her cheeks but were now starting to dry as she talked with more conviction in her voice instead of doubt. "I think that's a great idea." Ty knew all of the publicity that came from that video had just ended up building to a point where Amy began to lose touch with herself. It became more like she was trying to prove to everyone that she was capable of curing every horse that came to her, rather than just simply helping the horse heal from whatever scars tainted its past. "And you know you don't have to stop helping problem horses. I would never expect, nor want, you to give up the thing you love."

"I know. Ty, I'm so sorry about tonight, about making you think I really didn't want this. I do. I always will, and it doesn't matter what my dad says, you're right: we're going to make this work our own way. You're a great husband, and I know you're going to be an even better dad."

Finally, Ty was able to see that loving smile appear on his wife's face again, making him want to do nothing more than reach out and pull her into his arms. Which he did, tightly, his fingers brushing through her blonde hair and he held her against him, not daring to let go. "We're going to be fine," he murmured in her ear.

"We are," Amy assured him, her own hand raking through his hair, fingers curling against his scalp. "I love you."

Ty pulled back to rest his forehead against Amy's with a smile before pressing his lips firmly to hers. The kiss was a little moist from Amy's tears, Ty able to taste their saltiness but he only tilted his head to the side to deepen the kiss for a moment longer before they both needed to come up for air. "I love you, too."

**A/N: **_"GKB:Fantastic chapters ,so don't let her make the decision to have a abortion , please? Make sure they find that perfect ranch to fit their needs & future family or maybe win the lotto to help out. __Please honor us with a lot more, don't hold us in suspense to long please!"_** You know this is the same story you've been reading on my tumblr? I'm just sharing it over here now as well. I just haven't caught up with uploading all of the parts on here yet. So you know what happens. Hahaha**


	10. Chapter 10

"I can't believe you kicked me out," Caleb huffed, grabbing his duffel bag from the back of Ty's truck while Ty grabbed another and the two men hauled them up to the loft.

"I'm sorry, man. But it's like you said, we're going to have another person in the trailer in a few months. There's just not enough room for us all." Ty dropped the bag at the foot of the bed. It had been a couple days since he officially had "the talk" with Caleb, and then with Amy that resulted in them finally clearing up the whole abortion issue that turned into a non-issue. While things were now better between them, they weren't completely back to normal with Tim still on their case about it, but they'd pretty much taken to avoiding him at this point, just to save themselves the headache.

"Yeah, a few months. You couldn't have let me stay until then?" Caleb went over to the door that overlooked the pond and pushed it open to let the sunlight filter in. "It's still my trailer after all. I mean, I'm still your landlord. I could have you evicted and make you live here in the loft."

"Come on, man. You wouldn't do that to Amy."

"Alright, fine. Then you can come back to the loft and I'll stay and live with Amy. Don't worry, she'll be in good hands." Caleb grinned, dodging Ty's punch to his shoulder. "Seriously, though, you're really going to bring a baby into that crappy trailer? Amy's okay with that?"

Ty sighed. "Well, we really don't have much choice right now. Finding a bigger place just doesn't seem to be working out for us and Amy doesn't want to move into town and be so far from Heartland."

"She's not going to still be working with those horses, though, is she?"

"We talked about it… sort of. Even though I'm not thrilled with the idea, we agreed that she would for as long as she was comfortable, but I made her promise to always have someone here, just in case, and not to over-exert herself."

Caleb just shook his head. "I doubt very much she's going to stick to that agreement."

Ty shrugged, "Well, that's about all I could get out of her for the time being. I don't think it'll stick either but I'm willing to honor it until I need to step in and put my foot down."

"Well, good luck with that. Your wife is stubborn as a mule, she'll find loopholes. She always does."

"Yeah, well, we'll just take it as it comes I suppose." Ty sighed and looked around at the old loft space. It hadn't been used in a couple years and was covered in a fine layer of dust and plenty of cobwebs, but it still looked the same as he'd always remembered it. "Feels weird being up here again, doesn't it?"

Caleb looked around as well, reaching down to give the footboard of the bed a shake. "Yeah. This old place has seen quite a bit, and heard quite a bit more. Hell, if these walls could talk we'd have to burn the barn down."

Ty chuckled, heading back for the door. "It's a good thing they can't."

* * *

Amy stood in front of the mirror in the trailer, sucking her gut in and trying to button her jeans, which was successful but left her feeling as if she was being suffocated. Scared she was squishing the baby, she quickly undid them, her eyes lowering on the glass to her abdomen. She ran her hand over her stomach and the baby that lay within. She really didn't look any different, but Amy could feel the changes her body was going through aside from the morning sickness and just being tired all of the time. Her waist was thickening, that much was obvious from the way her jeans were tighter than they used to be and she could feel how much firmer the lower part of her belly was. It was still almost surreal to her to know that she was pregnant, but the sonogram she and Ty set up an appointment for in Calgary would probably change all of that. Amy had never been more excited than when she got off the phone with the clinic with a confirmed date to see their child for the first time. Of course, it probably wouldn't look like much more than a glitch on the screen, but it wouldn't matter. It would be their little glitch.

"Knock, knock." Lou pulled open the trailer door and poked her head in, causing Amy to snap out of her reverie and move around the trailer to find a new pair of pants that would be looser around her waist.

"Hey Lou, what's up? Come in."

Lou stepped into the trailer, pulling the door shut behind her and taking a look around. "I was just seeing how you were. Ty's at the ranch with Caleb, I was just wondering…"

Amy smiled at her sister, digging through the tiny closet. "We're fine, Lou. He's just helping Caleb move his stuff over before he heads to the clinic. It just made more sense for us to drive separately. Plus, I wasn't ready by the time he needed to leave, so." Pulling out a pair of pants, Amy tossed them onto the bed and closed the door so she could change.

"Oh. Okay, well that's good. I just haven't heard anything more about the other night at dinner and what happened after. We heard you and Ty arguing."

Amy looked up at her sister, feeling guilty for withholding all that happened between her and Ty after they'd all split from the dinner table. Normally, Lou would have been the first person Amy went to for advice about what to do about all of it, but she hadn't wanted to admit what had briefly run through her mind. Still, Caleb heard enough about it from Ty; it surprised Amy that he hadn't gone and blabbed. "It was just…hormones. You know how that is. We're fine though, promise."

Lou was nodding, crossing over to the table and sitting in the recliner. "Boy do I ever. I certainly don't miss those days. The sensitivity to everything, restless nights, never being able to get comfortable, and don't even get my started on the itching! It literally felt like my skin was crawling."

Amy paused, turning to stare at her sister. "Thanks, Lou. Glad to know what I have to look forward to," she said with sarcasm, pulling the new jeans up over her waist and making a second attempt at buttoning them. They fit better than the other ones, but even though they were still a little snug, at least they were more bearable.

"So, have you and Ty made that ultrasound appointment yet?" Lou asked.

Amy nodded, moving around Lou to get her boots and sitting in the seat at the other side of the table to put them on. "Yep," was all Amy replied, knowing Lou wasn't asking just for conversation.

Lou watched her sister for a moment, expecting a more elaborate answer, realizing then she should have worded her question differently. "Well. When is it?"

"You're not coming, Lou."

"Who said I wanted to come? I was just asking when we could expect to see those pictures." There was a pause when Amy shot her big sister a look that said she knew otherwise. "Okay, so maybe I want to come. But so what, why can't I?"

"Because… I just want it to be me and Ty. I never went to your ultrasound with Katie."

"You never asked."

"That's because I respected that it as a special day for you and Peter. And it's going to be special for me and Ty as well. I just want it to be…"

"Special?"

Amy shot Lou another look. "I promise we will come straight to Heartland as soon as we're finished to show you the pictures. Okay? Besides, it's not like there's going to be much to see. I mean, it's not going to look like much of anything right now, right?"

"No, but that's not the point. My baby sister is having a baby, I just want to be as much as part of it as I can be." Lou sat in the chair with a small pucker to her lower lip as she pouted at her sister for being denied permission to come along. "You promise I get to be the first to see those pictures?"

Shaking her head Amy stood and went to grab her sweater from the hook. "Yes, Lou. I promise."

"And I get to be in the delivery room too, right? Cause you were there when Katie was born. It's only fair." Lou jumped up to follow Amy outside, Amy sending a bit of a weirded out look over her shoulder.

"Uh, yeah, that's because you gave birth to Katie in the house and no one else was around. I still have nightmares about that day." Amy grabbed the truck handle and yanked the door open, Lou reaching out to grab it as Amy climbed in to keep her from closing it on her.

"Come on, Amy. I want to be there when my niece or nephew is born. Please?"

Sighing, Amy dropped her hands on the steering wheel and shook her head, looking at Lou with a little smile. "We'll see. Okay? There's still a long time before now and then." Reaching out Amy yanked the door from Lou's grasp to close it as she started the truck and started reversing onto the road.

Lou stepped back to keep from getting her toes run over as she watched Amy leave. "Wait! When's your appointment?!" She called after her, raising her arm to try and get her sister's attention, but Amy either didn't hear or ignored her as she backed onto the road and headed to the ranch. Lou lowered her arm back down and huffed, kicking at the gravel with her boot before turning to hop back in her own truck to follow Amy back to Heartland for further interrogation.


	11. Chapter 11

Early morning light filtered through the trailer on the day of Amy's first ultrasound appointment. There was a smile pulling at Ty's lips before he even became fully aware that he was awake and bothered to open his eyes. He could feel Amy's body close against his on the small bed crammed against the back wall of the trailer. It was quiet and peaceful, the only sounds coming through the walls were of the birds outside and… pages turning?

Ty awoke further to shift his body, stretching out his legs and rolling over onto his back to open one eye and look at his wife turned away from him, propped up on her arm and looking down at what he assumed was some sort of book. He reached out to rub the back of his fingers against her shoulder, causing her to glance back at him with a soft smile. "Good morning."

Ty pushed himself up so he could see over her shoulder what she was reading, kissing the warm skin of her arm on his way up. "You're up early. Whatcha reading?"

Amy turned the page of the "What to Expect" book she'd gotten in town a few days ago. "Just this baby book I got. I just wanted to be prepared for this appointment today."

Ty rested his chin against her shoulder to look down and let his eyes skim over the page she was turned to. He looked at the cartoon drawing of a developing fetus inside of the womb that very much resembled some sort of sea creature. "There's no need to be nervous. It's going to be fine." Ty slipped his arm around her waist, dipping his hand beneath her shirt to run over the warm skin of her belly the held the baby they were going to get a glimpse of in a few hours time.

"I'm not nervous. I just want to be informed is all. This is all new to me, I just want to know as much as I can."

"So what have you learned?"

"Well, I learned that the baby probably has a good heartbeat by now. And its little tail is disappearing." Amy grinned, glancing over her shoulder at Ty's reaction.

"Tail? No way. Are we having some kind of alien baby?" He reached down to pull the book away from Amy to read this bit of information himself about their child having a tail.

Amy kept her grip on the book to keep Ty from taking it from her, laughing. "No. It's just part of its development. It grows into the tailbone, which I guess makes sense, but you missed the most important part. It might have a heartbeat already."

"Well, you kind of buried that bit of information with the whole thing about our kid having a tail." Ty got a little bit worried for a second there, even though he knew Amy wasn't one to easily be able to joke about things like that without having them based in some sort of fact. She just wasn't quite witty in that sense. But hearing the baby could have a heartbeat made Ty grin. "So a heartbeat. One that we can hear?" He moved then to slide back and pull Amy down onto her back as he ducked his head down to rest his ear against her abdomen.

Amy laughed and shifted, moving the book out of the way to give Ty room to place his head on her. "I don't think you'll be able to hear it that way." Still, Amy couldn't help the tender smile that appeared as she looked town at the back of her husband's head resting on her belly. She reached down to stroke her fingers through his hair. "I hope we can hear it though. How incredible would that be."

Amy was right, he couldn't hear anything except the workings of her digestive tract and feel the pulse of her aorta against his face. It didn't matter, though, he knew their baby rest somewhere just on the other side of his head and that was enough for him to pick up her shirt and plant his lips against her bare skin. "That would be pretty amazing. I'll be happy enough just to get to see it today."

Ty lifted his head then, turning to look up at his beautiful wife, finally seeing that glow return to her features over the last week as things had started to settle down within the family in regard to this baby. Or, mostly just Tim. He seemed to realize any negativity he felt the need to relay would be met with contempt and deliberate avoidance. Amy really didn't need to deal with that stress again and Ty was going to make sure she didn't have to.

"How did you sleep? You didn't wake me up a dozen times last night." Lately, Amy had been having issues with her morning sickness carrying over into the night, as well as the rest of the day. It worried Ty that she could be so sick all of the time, but he knew that was one of the many woes of pregnancy. He just wished there was some way he could help her combat it, though knew there wasn't much he could do other than get out of the way fast enough when Amy needed to make a mad run out the door or to the nearest convenient place to get sick and hold her hair back if she let him get that close to her. He made sure they were well stocked on saltines and ginger ale, too, which seemed to be Amy's go-to bedtime and morning snack before she threw herself into the day.

"Pretty well, for once. I thought I'd be laying awake all night from my nerves, but it was actually a pretty restful night. Despite your snoring." Amy grinned. Ty's snoring was nothing at all compared to Caleb's, which could easily be heard through the walls of the trailer when he used to sleep out on the couch.

"What? You're such a liar." Ty laughed, his hands coming down to grip Amy's sides as he tickled her weakest spot. Amy's whole body tensed and convulsed from the attack to her ribs as she laughed and squirmed in his gasp. "I don't snore."

"Ty. Stop," she laughed her body curling and squirming to get away from his hands. The tightening of her diaphragm from her hard laughter was rough on her stomach, though, and Amy could feel herself getting queasy as she tried to take in the air that had been torn from her lungs from her laughter. "Stop," she told him again, serious this time even though she was still laughing and trying to pry his hands away.

"Ty. I'm going to be sick." That got his attention and almost immediately did he stop and tear his hands away from her sides, the wide grin falling from his face as Amy sat up and closed her eyes, inhaling slow and deep breaths.

"You okay? You want some ginger ale?" Ty untangled himself from the bed sheets and stepped over Amy to get out of bed and open the little fridge, grabbing a bottle of Canada Dry.

Amy shook her head. "No. No, I think it's going away." One of her least favorite things was throwing up. She always hated having the flu, or being ill at all, and now this was like the flu from hell that just wouldn't go away and that no antibiotics could help.

"You should drink something anyway. And eat. You need food in your system. How about we go to Maggie's for breakfast?" Ty set the ginger ale on the counter to screw off the cap and hand the small bottle to Amy, watching her take small sips despite her initial protest. She was nodding though as she drank, lowering the bottle from her lips.

"Maggie's sounds good. I'm actually kind of hungry for some blueberry pancakes if I can keep them down," she smiled, handing Ty the bottle to be returned to the fridge.

"Then blueberry pancakes it is. Maybe we can head up to Calgary a little early then, too? Do a little shopping?"

Amy was careful as she got herself out of bed, not wanting to disrupt her stomach from the sudden vertical movement. "Shopping? I never thought I'd ever hear that word come out of your mouth. What are we shopping for?"

Ty shrugged, a small crooked smile pulling at the corner of his mouth as he moved aside for Amy to find some clothes to change into. "I don't know. Maybe some baby stuff. Might as well start looking now, right?"

Amy stopped digging for clothes to look up at Ty with a gentle smile, excitement blossoming in her chest on top of what was already there at the idea of browsing for baby stuff. "Okay. That sounds nice." She tossed the shirt she had in her hand at Ty. "Now let's hurry up and get dressed. Baby is hungry," she laughed.


	12. Chapter 12

Breakfast at Maggie's turned into more of a brunch after Amy and Ty first made a pit stop at Heartland on the way into town to make sure things were under control while they went into Calgary for the day. While the farm work had been taken care of, Amy had forgotten to phone an incoming new client to reschedule the drop off date for their horse. So they ended up having a surprise visitor just as she and Ty were pulling back up the driveway. It had been Amy's own fault for letting it slip her mind, or not delegating it to someone else, so instead of sending them away, had Ty turn round to get the new mare settled in and the proper paper work filled out in addition to spending the better half of an hour hearing about the mare's history and what exactly the problem was.

Of course with a new horse there Amy had wanted to stick around and check her out, get a feel for her and learn more about her traits first hand, but today wasn't a day where she could shift her time around to do it and reluctantly climbed back in the truck with Ty to finally make the drive into town.

Despite it being a little too close to lunch for pancakes, Amy's cravings demanded she order them anyway. She was quick to learn that there was no fighting it, finding it nearly impossible to properly function until the craving was satisfied. It was best for everyone if she just took care of it before it could fester and become a serious issue.

Her blueberry short-stack had been delicious, as usual, and Amy was beyond thrilled that by the time she and Ty were back in his truck headed up highway 2 to Calgary, she managed to keep them down. It was a pretty smooth ride so there weren't many bumps to jar her sensitive stomach too much. Regardless, Amy had a bottle of ginger ale in hand to keep it that way.

"Doin' okay?" Ty asked, glancing over once they reached the city limits, carefully navigating through the mid-afternoon traffic.

Amy lifted her head that had been resting in her hand with her arm against the door to look at Ty with a smile and a nod. "Yeah. I'm just kind of bummed we didn't get a chance to make it up sooner. That client completely slipped my mind." She had been looking forward to browsing through the baby stuff. Even though she saw enough of it at home from Katie, she had a whole new perspective now that it was her child she'd be needing it for. A lot of the stuff Amy knew Lou would be passing down to her, since she kept a majority of it just in case she and Peter did get pregnant again, but that was also the reason that Amy and Ty decided they should probably look into getting a lot of it new for themselves so they didn't have to worry about if Lou were to get pregnant again.

A smile pulled at Ty's mouth as he reached over and placed his hand on his wife's shoulder. "Hey, don't worry about it. It's just your baby brain at work." Lou's had been pretty comical those few years ago when she'd been pregnant with Katie. Her forgetfulness, while frustrating to her, had been rather amusing to everyone else who bore witness.

"Lou warned me this would happen. I just didn't think it would so soon. I still don't really feel that different. Except for… the sour stomach, fatigue, restless nights…oh and of course there is the constant need to go to the bathroom all the time. That's always nice when I'm trying to ride or work with a horse," Amy joked with sarcasm, grinning in Ty's direction when he chuckled at her.

"You're certainly in a good mood today." Lately it had been a lot of touch and go with Amy's moods. He knew the new influx of pregnancy hormones were to blame for it, but he was still trying to get used to the roller-coaster of emotions she could go through in a single day, sometimes even within a few minutes. It made him much more cautious of the words he chose and how to approach her if they'd been apart for long enough that he wasn't sure what he was walking into.

"I am." Amy replied, her voice absolutely agreeing with her mood. Until her morning sickness abated, she was really unsure of how the rest of the day would go. Some days all she wanted to do was curl into a ball beneath the blankets and other days she was good to go through a whole day with only minor belly aches that were easy enough to overlook. Today she felt pretty good and really hoped things remained that way physically. She didn't want her chipper mood to tank when today was a day she and Ty had been looking forward to for over a week now.

Ty guided the old truck down a maze of busy streets until he found the entrance to the parking garage for the medical clinic and swung into an open spot. He climbed out as Amy dug in the glove box to make sure she had all of the needed paperwork to make check-in as quick and painless as possible.

Ty came around and pulled the door open for her, making her smile at him while she climbed down. She nodded when he asked if she had everything, slipping her arm around his waist as he did hers until they reached the elevator entrance that would take them up to the correct floor. Amy pressed the '5' button then leaned back against Ty as the door slid closed and the machine carried them up.

The doors opened to the lobby that looked much less intimidating than the lobby of a regular hospital. Amy approached the receptionist and signed herself in, turning over the appropriate papers so she didn't have to spend their waiting time with a clipboard in her lap. She was able to go find a seat with Ty in the waiting area that was empty save for another couple at the far end who were further along in their pregnancy from what Amy could tell by the noticeable baby bump the woman was sporting. Amy smiled faintly before looking away, not wanting to get caught staring.

Ty leaned in close, his voice quiet as his breath brushed against her ear. "I think you're going to look adorable with that bump," he smiled, having noticed where Amy's gaze had fallen. He pressed a kiss to her cheek, reaching over to take her hand into his lap as they waited for their turn to come around.

It wasn't a long wait, maybe fifteen minutes at best, but the longer they sat there after the other couple were called back, the more anxious Ty became to the point where his leg started thumping against the floor.

"Now who's nervous." Amy placed her hand on his bouncing leg as Ty looked down and forced it to stop.

"I'm just eager is all."

"Amy Borden?" A nurse called, looking around the otherwise empty lobby until her eyes fell on Amy and Ty as they stood and followed her back to a room. "Is this your first?" She asked politely, pulling down a clean sheet of paper to cover the table Amy was going to be laying on that was situated beside an ultrasound machine.

"Yes," Amy replied, standing by with Ty and watching the nurse move about, awaiting instruction.

"Okay, so what we're going to do is ask you to remove your pants and underwear then lay back on the table and make yourself comfortable. You can cover up with this," she handed Amy a thin blanket. "The technician should be with you shortly."

Amy nodded, both she and Ty saying "thank yous" before being left alone for Amy to strip down and hop on the table, draping the blanket over her bare lower half.

"So, why do you have to be half naked for this?" Ty asked, sliding a chair over from the corner to sit down beside of Amy. "I thought they just squeezed that gel over your belly." At least, that's how he'd always seen it done - in movies.

"I think it's too soon to see the baby that way." Amy wasn't too sure herself, but was sure the technician could answer that for them when she came in a few minutes later.

"It's true since we don't know how far along you are that it'll be easier to go through trans-vaginally. We can try finding the baby through your belly, but the picture won't be as clear if we can find it at all. This way also makes it easiest for us to make sure your pregnancy is normal and the baby isn't developing inside the fallopian tube or where it shouldn't be. The experience is different for everyone, but you should only feel mild discomfort."

The technician got the machine set up as Amy folded up and opened her legs for the tech to have access to her. She pulled out a wand-like object she called a transducer and rolled a lubricated condom onto it before sliding it up inside of Amy. She'd been right, it wasn't comfortable and felt rather odd extending the length of her vagina and through her cervix into her uterus. Amy was almost afraid to move, but seeing the inside of her womb up on the monitor had her attention.

She and Ty both watched as the screen ebbed and flowed as the sound waves bounced off the walls of her uterus while the tech tried to find their baby. It took a few minutes of searching before she paused.

"There it is," she told them with a smile, adjusting some nobs on the machine. "Let's see if I can get a better view." Now that she had the baby in sights, it only took a few minor adjustments until it was front and center on the screen. It really didn't look like much of anything but a teddy bear-shaped blob without the ears, maybe more of a gingerbread man.

"Oh wow," Ty breathed, transfixed by the image on the screen as the nurse took some quick measurements before pointing out the little features. Not much was noticeable except for the head and arm and leg buds, but it was still the most incredible thing Amy had ever seen. She couldn't believe that's what it looked like inside of her right then.

"Judging from the size of the fetus, I'd say you are maybe bordering ten weeks, but when you have a follow-up with your doctor he'll let you know for certain." She told them as she adjusted the angle again then ran the cursor over a part of the baby that looked like it was moving, pulsing. "See this pulsing? That's the heart."

"That's pretty amazing." Ty commented, reaching out to fold his hand around Amy's, running his other hand over her arm. Both of their gazes were glue to the screen and the little beating heart that the technician was now trying to get a read on, but Amy still gave Ty's hand a loving squeeze when a jagged line appeared to measure the heart rate.

"Can we hear it?" Amy asked, hopeful that it was strong enough for them to get to hear.

"We can definitely try. It's rating at a hundred and sixty-seven beats per minute, which is nice and strong. Let me just finish up here and then we'll get the doppler." She finished taking measurements and making sure she had everything properly written. She was careful as she pulled the wand from Amy and rolled off the condom to toss in the medical waste basket. Amy was then allowed to put her legs down and get comfortable again while the technician pulled out a little handheld doppler and some of that gel Ty had asked about earlier.

Amy pulled up her shirt to expose her still flat, but expanding belly for the tech to place some of the cool gel against her skin. There wasn't much but static when the wand was first placed against her lower abdomen, the tech moving it around until a whooshing noise erupted from the little speaker. She turned it up, shifting the doppler over a little bit one way then the other until it became clearer. The baby's quick heartbeat filled the room and had both Amy and Ty staring at her belly.

"It sounds like a herd of horses, doesn't it?" She looked up toward Ty who's face just showed the awe he was feeling hearing his child's heart beating so strongly from inside of Amy. "Are you okay? You look like you're about to cry," she smiled, reaching up to rub her hand along his arm.

Ty snapped out of his daze to lift his green gaze to his wife with a smile. "Yep, yeah, no I'm good. It does kind of sound like horses, yeah." He cleared his throat in attempt to maintain composure even though he was easily on the verge of having some emotional tears well in his eyes.

Seeing their child up on the screen and then getting to hear its beautiful, steady heartbeat, made Amy's pregnancy and their impending parenthood so much more real. It absolutely amazed Ty that he and Amy managed to create this tiny life that now resided inside of her, literally taking their two halves to create one whole being. Ty never experienced such a miracle of life before. None of the animal births he'd witnessed over the course of his time at Heartland and working with Scott could ever compare to the one he'd get to experience in six more months, and he honestly couldn't wait.


	13. Chapter 13

With their first baby picture in hand, Amy walked with Ty out of the clinic and back to the elevator to take them down to the parking deck. The whole ride in the elevator was spent with the two of them bent over the sonogram photo of their little blob of a baby, adoring smiles plastered to both of their faces.

Ty slipped his hand behind Amy's waist as she leaned against the back wall. "It looks like me already, what do you think?" Already he was beaming with fatherly pride looking down at his child. He didn't think he'd ever get tired of staring at this picture or sharing it with anyone who'd stand still long enough to look. He made sure to get a copy to keep in his wallet.

Amy studied the picture carefully before pulling it away from Ty's hand to step back and hold it up next to his head. "Well… he's definitely a lot cuter than you are," she laughed softly, pulling the photo away as the elevator doors opened to the parking garage.

"Hey now, it's got half of my genes in him remember," Ty joked with Amy as they exited the elevator to head back to the truck.

"Yeah, but the cuter half comes from me," Amy shot over the truck as she climbed in beside Ty who was pulling his wallet out of his pocket to fold his copy of the sonogram image inside of it to carry with him everywhere.

Amy scooted closer to Ty in the truck before he had a chance to turn it on and get moving, shifting the photo between them again. "Isn't it amazing that this is our baby? I mean, it's really happening. This is the start of our family."

It was hard to believe that at the beginning of it all their future looked so questionable and uncertain from all of the ups and downs their relationship struggled through. Deep down Amy and Ty both knew that they wanted to spend their life with each other, but it was difficult for them to accept when so much had happened to get in the way over the years. Now, that all seemed so long ago as they were married and expecting their first child. Their dream of owning their own farm was still just a dream, but they continued trying to make it a reality any chance they got. Unfortunately, those chances were becoming few and far between. It didn't matter how long it took, though, Amy had faith that they would find their perfect ranch one day. Right now, wherever Ty was, that was home.

Ty lifted his eyes from the baby picture to his wife, watching her continue to gaze at the photo with so much love it made his own heart ache from the strength of it.

When his time at Heartland began, Ty never would have believed he'd be on a path that led him to this moment. He never thought he deserved such a wonderful life as he'd been given by the incredible girl that sat beside him. If he ever had children, he would have thought they'd come from some unprotected casual hook-up with a girl he met at a bar that didn't mean anything to him. He loved kids and would love any child of his no matter the mother, but the idea of marrying the woman he loved and actually having a real family never felt in the cards for him because he'd grown up in such a broken home he'd been afraid he wouldn't know how to appreciate it if it was given to him. He always just assumed he was on the similar path of his own father, or destined to become a lonely nomad constantly on the run from the law. Then he came to Heartland and met Amy and was welcomed so openly into her family that he spent ten years learning what it was like to actually be a part of a real home. He came to realize that he was in charge of his own fate and the decisions he made could make or break his future - but it was all up to him. Through the love and support of the Bartlett-Fleming-Morris', Ty learned that he was worth a damn and that he did deserve to love and be loved in return. Heartland changed his life and even though there were choices he'd made over the years that he would take back if he could, he wouldn't change this one for anything. He was ready to become a father and staring into the eyes of his wife as she held the photo of their child made him absolutely positive of that.

Amy looked up when Ty neglected to say anything in response to her comment, smiling when she saw him already staring at her, but wondering why he didn't answer. "What?"

Ty shook his head, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and running his fingers through the ends of her blonde hair. "You," he replied, leaning in to rest his head against her with a grin. "You are truly amazing, do you know that? I don't know how to thank you enough for turning my life around, making me your husband, and giving me a child. I think this can go down as one of the happiest days of my life next to our wedding day and of course the day we get to welcome this little one into the world." His head turned to look at the picture Amy still held, never being so proud of anything in his life even when all they were looking at was a grainy black and white photograph of a misshapen peanut.

"Well," Amy started, brushing her nose against Ty's cheek as he looked down at the photo, causing him to turn his head to look at her again, Amy tipping her head back to properly looking to his handsome face. "You know I can't take all the credit. It was your decisions that helped bring us here, too, and I couldn't have gotten pregnant on my own, so you deserve some credit for that as well. I'm really proud of you, Ty." Amy could still remember him as the boy in the loft who copped an attitude at just about everything and was as flighty as a bird. That Ty was gone now, replaced with a kind, loving, grounded, man that Amy loved more than life itself. She always figured she'd marry some cowboy, never thinking this juvenile delinquent that showed up in the wake of her mother's death would ever mean much of anything to her. Oh how wrong she was and, for once in her life, she was glad.

"You know I couldn't have done it without your help." It was Amy's encouragement and Ty's sheer desire to be better, for not only himself, but her as well that drove him to get his GED and attend vet school so he could eventually become a man they could both be proud of.

"Can't argue with you there," Amy joked, smiling as she tipped her head to press her lips delicately to Ty's.

"It's still pretty early yet. Do you want to maybe hold off on heading back home for a while and squeeze in that little shopping trip since we're here? Maybe grab some dinner before we head back?" Ty suggested once their lips parted. He knew Amy was probably eager to get home for a number of reasons, one of them being Lou who was impatiently awaiting her chance to get a glimpse at her little niece or nephew. But they were already in the city and even though it was technically Amy's fault they were late leaving this morning, Ty still felt bad they didn't have time to browse through baby things. Aside from anxious family members waiting for news and a new horse on the farm that Amy wanted to get started with, they had no obligations that couldn't be put off until later this evening or tomorrow.

"You know Lou is going to start harassing us if we take too long to get home," Amy informed Ty with a raise of her brow, but at the same time the power was in their hands and they could make Lou wait as long as they wanted and she could do nothing about it. Amy couldn't be that mean to her poor sister, but Ty was right: they were already here and Amy didn't know when they'd be back again before her next ultrasound in a few more months.

"Come on, Amy. It won't kill her to wait another couple hours. I'm sure she's busy with those guests at the Dude Ranch now anyway. Call her to let her know we'll be late if you feel that bad…or text her?" Ty added when Amy shot him a look that said she had no intention of calling Lou. she could already anticipate her exasperated sister guilt-tripping them into coming right home.

Amy thought about it for another minute. It really wouldn't hurt anything to remain in the city for another little while. That new mare would have a little extra time to settle in and Amy liked the idea of getting a few more hours alone with Ty and their baby before it was back to work for the both of them in the morning. "Okay. Let me just text Lou first so she doesn't freak out too much," Amy laughed, reaching for her phone and shooting Lou an apologetic text with a promise that they'd be in to show off the photos first thing when they got back.

Ty reached down to turn the key in the ignition when Amy stopped him. "Let's just walk from here. I saw a children's store just a couple blocks down and this way we don't have to feed the meter." It was also a rather nice day out despite some cloud coverage and, frankly, after that long drive into the city and with a long drive back, getting out to walk would be a nice change.

Ty nodded in agreement, removing the keys from the ignition and pocketing them as he got out of the truck. Not a minute after they started heading toward the exit of the parking garage did Amy's phone ring. Pulling it out, she rolled her eyes to see Lou's number appear. She took a moment to debate on answering it, but decided she'd better or else Lou would probably just continue to call.

"Hey, Lou."

_"What do you mean you're not coming back?! I've been waiting all-"_

"Lou. We're not coming back _never_. Just not for a few more hours." Amy shook her head at Ty's amused grin, which slipped a moment when he felt his pockets and realized he left his wallet lay in the truck.

"I'll be right back." He mouthed to Amy, pointing back toward the truck. She nodded, still trying to half pay attention to Lou's ranting on the other end of the line while Ty headed back to the truck.

"Lo-Lou." There was a crackling as Amy stopped to wait for Ty, hearing Lou's voice come in and out but even when it was in it wasn't understandable over the static. "Lou I can't hear you…hello?"

_"Hell-? Am- Are- there?"_

"I'm in a parking garage. Hold on a minute." Amy said loudly and slowly into the phone as she started moving toward the exit again to get out on the street where there was better reception.

Keeping the phone against her ear, Amy tried to listen for Lou's voice to come back in through the static. It continued to come in and out until the phone beeped and dropped the call completely. Pulling the phone from her ear, Amy sighed and paused in her walking to look at it. That pause, just a fraction of a second, before she made the decision to just wait to call Lou back when she got outside made all the difference.

The car collided with her right side, the driver having seen Amy a moment too late in the very poor lighting of the garage. Amy heard it coming and turned around to see where it was. In the fraction of a second before she was hit, she could see the horrified look of the man behind the wheel beyond the glare of the headlights, his whole body tensing as he slammed on the brakes to try and stop his momentum, but was too slow. The car plowed into her, tossing Amy up onto the hood like a rag doll, her head cracking against the windshield as the car slammed to a stop, sending her rolling back down and crashing to the pavement as her world abruptly went dark.

Ty heard the screeching tires as he was stuffing his wallet back into the pocket of his jeans, his head whipping around at the thud of a body rolling up and down the hood of the car. "Amy!" Panic tore through him as he broke into a sprint through the garage, squeezing between parked cars to get to the row where the accident occurred. _Please don't be her, please don't be her,_ was all he could think to himself as he reached the scene of the accident. As much as he didn't want anyone to be hurt, he really prayed to God that it just wasn't Amy.

The driver got out, turning a traumatized look in Ty's direction as he slowed to a jog upon reaching the vehicle. "I'm so sorry. I… I didn't even see her," he stuttered, but Ty wasn't even pay attention to the man. His heart was racing in his throat as he saw Amy lying on the ground, her face covered by her hair that was partially matted with blood from the gash in her head from when it hit the windshield.

"Oh my god. Call an ambulance!" Ty shouted at the other man, feeling sick as he ran around to the front of his wife, falling down to his knees. His hands hovered over her, wanting to touch her but feared causing her pain. "Amy? Honey, answer me," Ty pleaded, carefully using his finger to push her hair away from her face. She didn't respond, Ty seeing her eyes closed and he was seized by sheer terror. "Amy. Amy, wake up. Amy you need to answer me. Please."


	14. Chapter 14

Ty refused to let go of Amy's hand. When the paramedics finally arrived in the parking garage, he'd moved back as he was forced to give them room to take care of his wife, watching helpless and afraid that he was going to lose not only her, but their child as well. While they did a general assessment of Amy's condition before pulling out the stretcher to carefully move her onto it, Ty answered the questions being asked as accurately as he could in his dazed and panicked state. He watched as they fastened a breathing tube over her mouth and strapped her down, lifting her into the ambulance. Ty dived in after them and sat where he was instructed, reaching for Amy's limp hand that he hadn't released since.

The EMTs were forced to work around him, doing a more thorough assessment of Amy's injuries, focusing mostly on the gash to her head. Ty kept his mouth shut even though there were a million and one questions wanting to pour from his lips, but he couldn't even bring himself to speak or get his vocal cords to work. He just stared unblinking at Amy, willing her to open her eyes or squeeze his hand to let him know that she was still with him. She was alive at least, but the blow to her head knocked her out cold and there was no telling what else was going on in there yet. Ty knew how tricky head injuries were, having suffered a few himself over the years, but it was the fact that Amy had yet to come to that scared him.

The trip to the hospital was only a few minutes since it was only a few blocks away from the medical center, but with the traffic taking its good old time to make room for the bus, they were set back.

The ambulance came to a halt and almost immediately the rear doors were ripped open as doctors and nurses poured out of the emergency entrance to transfer Amy to the gurney. Ty climbed out with her, only letting go of her hand for those couple seconds before he was reaching for her again and rushing along with the medical staff through the sliding doors.

Everything was happening so fast Ty had no clue what was even really going on around him. There was so much medical lingo being tossed back and forth at such an alarming rate that he couldn't follow any of it and only caught an occasional familiar word. Ty just stared down at Amy's face, squeezing her hand until he was pulled away by a nurse who couldn't grant him access beyond that point.

"Someone will find you as soon as she's stabilized," the nurse assured him before leaving Ty to stare wide-eyed at the swinging double doors that Amy had disappeared behind.

Ty remained standing there looking through the tiny glass window and having no clue what to do. He needed to be back there with her in case she woke up. He couldn't stomach the thought of her waking to those medical personnel surrounding her, terrified and not understanding what was going on or where she was and why he wasn't with her.

Ty started to shake, his hands balling into fists at his sides in an attempt to maintain some bit of control as he looked away from those doors at his surroundings to get his bearings. He didn't know where he was supposed to go or how a doctor would find him, so he didn't move. Instead, Ty backed up to the nearest wall outside those forbidden doors and slid down to the floor, resting his forearms on his bent knees. Ty stared at his hands, watching them tremble uncontrollably and clasped them tightly together, bringing them up to rest against his forehead.

His body shook with silent dry sobs as he was once again left to face the possibility of a world without Amy in it. Before it hadn't been from such a devastating trauma, but rather stupid relationship drama that seemed so ridiculous and insignificant now when they looked back on it. All he could think about was how much time they'd wasted dancing around their feelings for one another - how much time he'd wasted waiting for the perfect opportunity to propose. He couldn't help but think if he'd have asked sooner, they'd have gotten married sooner, gotten pregnant sooner, and this would have been avoided because Amy wouldn't have been in that garage today, but somewhere else. He couldn't stand to think that this was his fault in so many ways and didn't know how he would ever be able to live with himself if anything happened to her, or the baby she carried.

Ty spent what felt like hours there on the floor, his head resting against his hands as he stared at the linoleum, unmoving. His body went numb and his mind soon to match when he'd exhausted his guilt for the time being. For a brief moment he thought about calling Jack to let him know what happened, but without knowing Amy's condition wouldn't have much else to give him. Either way it was going to be a very long drive from Heartland, but Ty still couldn't bring himself to move, let alone get up and search for his cell phone. Come to think of it, he wasn't entirely sure where it had gotten to, having lost pretty much all track of everything the moment he heard those screeching tires.

Footsteps on the floor had him lifting his head that felt like it was filled with lead, but the didn't come through the doors. For someone who seemed to wait an awful lot, he couldn't stand it. If Tim were here he'd be at the front desk demanding answers and for once Ty kind of wished he was here since it appeared all he was capable of doing was sitting there on the floor and waiting. Tim would probably call him useless if he were here, but at the moment that was exactly how Ty felt. He wanted answers but was in no position to demand them and would be wasting his breath if they couldn't be given.

Eventually, Ty stopped shaking and lifted his head. He became aware that he was sitting on a lump in his back pocket and slowly forced himself to move so he could pull his wallet out of his pocket. The floor wasn't comfortable to begin with, but the bulge there was making it worse. Leaning forward, Ty dropped the wallet onto the floor between his legs, staring down at the corner of the picture that slipped out on impact. A lump wedged itself in his throat as he looked at the grainy black and white corner, slowly reaching down to pull it out. He unfolded the sonogram picture of their baby from just a couple hours ago, staring down at the disfigured gray blob and felt the tears he previously managed to keep at bay start to burn his eyes and blur his vision. His heart was aching at the thought of them possibly losing that little blob just when they finally started settling in on the idea of being parents.

"Mr. Borden?" Ty jerked his head up at the doctor's voice, sniffing away his tears as he struggled to his feet to face the doctor.

"Is she alright?" Ty asked, his voice sounding shaky and foreign to him, but his stomach was twisting in knots waiting for the doctor to answer.

"She's stable and became alert for a few moments before we had to put her under anesthetic to tend to her injuries." He removed the clipboard from under his arm then to inform Ty of what those injuries were. "We were most worried about her head trauma but there was no swelling or bleeding to her brain, just a concussion and some stitches. She's going to have a pretty severe headache for a few days though. The car struck her right side which is where the most damage occurred. She has a couple broken ribs and a collapsed lung but no other vital organs were damaged."

Ty listened carefully to the doctor's report trying to get his mind to focus and make sense of all that he was telling him. "So, she'll be okay?" he asked, unable to definitively draw that conclusion himself.

"As with all things, time will heal. She's going to have to remain here for a couple days though just to make sure no other problems arise and until she's strong enough to make the journey home."

Ty was nodding, feeling the relief start to seep through until he realized then that the doctor said nothing about the baby. "What about the baby?" Ty asked quickly, looking at the doctor anxiously.

There was an unsettling pause as he studied Ty. "We couldn't save it. I'm sorry. Your wife was always our primary concern, without her the fetus had no chance at all, but the trauma to her abdominal area was too severe for it to have survived the collision. There was too much internal bleeding."

Ty felt his heart sink so deep into the pit of his stomach he felt as if he was going to pass out, feeling the blood drain from his face as he paled. "C-can I see her?" He needed to see her. To be with her. She was probably so scared and broken.

"She won't be conscious for a few hours, but you can see her." He than gave Ty directions to Amy's room, Ty bending down to swipe his wallet off of the floor before rushing to Amy's bedside.

There was a nurse in the room when he arrived, checking Amy's IV then looking up at Ty with a small sympathetic smile. "She's a fighter," she said quietly to Ty, reaching up to place her hand gently on his shoulder.

"I know," Ty replied, nodding to the nurse as she left him alone with his wife and the steady beeping of the heart monitor in the corner.

Ty crossed the room to the chair in the other corner, dragging it across the floor to sit next to Amy's bed. He immediately reached out to slide his hand into hers, turning it over so he could rub his thumb over the back as he assessed every inch of his wife. He could see the scratches and scrapes on her arms and face. There was a bandage around her head, a small stain of blood seeping through from her stitched up wound. A nasal cannula was attached to her face to help feed oxygen into her body, Ty following the thin tube down her chest until it disappeared and he was left to let his eyes trail down her fragile body, landing on her abdomen.

The air seized up in his lungs as pain surged through him looking at her belly that he'd just rested his head on this morning and know there was no longer a baby inside of it. His hand tightened in hers as he reached out with the other to place against her stomach, but quickly removing it when he remembered her broken ribs, not wanting to cause her any pain even if she couldn't feel it right now from being under anesthetic and pain killers. He took his hand back, instead folding it around Amy's with his other and smoothing his palm delicately along her forearm as he swallowed back the threat of tears that strained against his throat and stung his eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Amy," he whispered quietly, bringing her hand up gently to press his lips to her fingers, his shoulders beginning to shake with those agonizing sobs once more at the feel of her skin against his face. This time they didn't remain dry, tears starting to slide their way down his face.


	15. Chapter 15

It seemed like all a rancher ever did was ride along his fences and mend weak lines or broken posts. Tim was out for the second day in a row staring down loose wires that bowed almost to the ground. He was working on tightening the second strand when the sound of a truck caught his attention. He turned toward the old dirt road almost directly behind him to see Jack's old beige and tan Chevy pull up alongside him. Tim sighed and stopped what he was doing as Jack climbed out and came to meet him.

"Oh, here we go." Tim could tell from the look on Jack's face that he was about to get hounded for something and there was only one thing lately that could be the cause for it.

"I was wondering when you'd come to drop the hammer and tell me just how terrible of a father I've been." Tim clapped his hands together in anticipation for whatever speech Jack was about to give him. "I know what you're going to say, Jack. In fact, I can probably tell myself off better than you."

Jack stopped in front of his former son-in-law and stared at him with a narrow gaze. "Is that so? Well, then let's hear it." Jack raised his arms to Tim, inviting him to speak up.

"It's not my place to be telling Amy how to live her life. She's a married adult now, living out on her own and getting ready to start a family. I'm her father and I should be there to support her instead of trying to dictate how she lives her life." Tim raised his brow when he finished, waiting for Jack's nod of approval. He received a nod, but it wasn't quite that amicable.

"That's right: it's not your place and it's none of your business what Amy and Ty do with their life together. You gave her away to him at their wedding, do you remember that? That was almost a year ago and you chose now to make a big stink about Amy not reaching her potential? In my mind she's far exceeded her potential already. She and Ty have been talking about a family since long before they were married. You know it and I know it and now they're finally starting one."

"I just don't want her missing out on opportunities because she's too busy having babies and what if she decides to stop working with problem horses to be a full-time mom? Then what? Sure she might enjoy it for a few years maybe but you and I both know she'll be miserable."

"I very much doubt Amy will give up living her dream, but even if she does, there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it. The bottom line is that this is Amy's decision. Not yours, not mine. She's going to do what she thinks is best for her and her family. And right now, it seems like best is keeping you at arm's length."

Jack knew Amy's distance was hurtful to Tim, but of course he tried not to show it. Even now he didn't say anything and just sniffed and moved his gaze over Jack's shoulder, resting his hands on his hips and shifting his weight.

"I just don't know if I can sit back and watch her trade in her gift for motherhood. She has something special, Jack. I don't want to see it wasted."

"I know you don't. None of us do. But we know Amy and helping those horses will always be in her heart. But right now her heart is being given to another and that baby is going to be your next grandchild. So I suggest if you ever want to see him or her, you man-up and come over to the house tonight for dinner. She and Ty went up to Calgary today for an ultrasound so I imagine they'll have some pictures to share of that grandbaby. Might be a good way to make amends." Though it had been going on for a few weeks, no one wanted this rift in the family to continue. They had too many over the years that an event like bringing a new member into the Bartlett-Fleming-Morris-Borden family should be bringing them together, not tearing them apart.

Tim looked at Jack for a long moment before the older man gave him a parting nod and turned to head back to his truck. Tim rubbed his hand over his face and sighed, knowing he needed to make things right with his daughter and son-in-law. He knew Jack was right: it wasn't any of his business what Amy and Ty did with their lives. He just hated that his shoes had been filled in both of his daughters' lives when it felt like he had just come back into them.

Tim was glad for the distraction from this heavy moment when his cell rang, pulling one of his work gloves off to dig it out of his pocket and see Lou calling. "Hey Lou."

_"Dad. Is grandpa with you?" _She sounded panicked and upset as if she was fighting tears, which had Tim suddenly standing straight and raising his eyes to Jack.

"Jack! Hold on a sec! What's wrong, Lou? What happened?" he asked, walking across the field to meet up with Jack who stopped and turned to look at Tim with a concerned frown.

_"It's Amy. She was in an accident."_

"What? I-is she okay? What kind of an accident?" Tim pointed at the truck for Jack to get in while he ran around to the other side and climbed in as well.

_"Ty said she was hit by a car. He said she was going to be okay, but it was pretty bad. She's at the hospital in Calgary." _

"We're on our way. We'll swing by to pick you up." Tim shut his phone and looked over at a confused, yet worried Jack, with a devastated expression. "Amy's in the hospital," Tim explained, further informing Jack of Lou's call as Jack threw the Chevy into gear and tore back down the road to Heartland to pick up Lou then make their way to the city.


	16. Chapter 16

It took Ty the better part of an hour before he finally sat up again, clearing his eyes and his mind as he glanced up the bed toward Amy who was still under the anesthetic. He watched her face, still beautiful behind the cuts and bruises caused from the accident. He knew he had to make that dreaded call to the rest of the family. They needed to know. But Ty just wanted to be here with Amy. He didn't want to have to deal with trying to explain to Jack and Tim and everyone else what happened and why, when he didn't exactly know himself since he didn't actually see it happen. He could hear it, though, and would never for get that horrifying sound of those screeching tires and that thump of Amy's body against the hood. He shut his eyes tightly to block it out, letting go of Amy with one hand to rub roughly over his face.

A nurse returned, giving Ty that small sympathetic smile again which he returned strictly out of politeness. "She's going to be out for a while yet, the cafeteria is just downstairs if you want anything," she suggested, but Ty just shook his head and stared down at Amy's hand in his where he suddenly realized her wedding band was missing.

"Her ring is gone," he said aloud, looking up at the nurse whose eyes trailed down to Amy's bare hand.

"It'll be with the rest of her personal affects at the nurse's station," she assured him, knowing there were plenty of dishonest people around who'd sooner take it for some quick cash than hand it off to someone for safe keeping.

"Oh, right, thank you." Ty should have realized they would have taken everything from her so it wouldn't get lost and her ring would have been a health hazard around all of the machines and medical equipment so they would have had to take it off. Still, Ty didn't like the thought of it being in the possession of anyone other than his wife. He wanted to get it, but his eyes went back to Amy and he hesitated, not wanting to leave her in case she woke up even though the nurse and doctor both told her she was going to be out for a while yet.

The current nurse seemed to notice Ty's dilemma and gave him that soft smile again. "I'll stay with her for a few minutes if you want to get her things. It's just down the hall to the right."

Ty glanced up at her then back to his wife, giving her hand a gentle squeeze as he nodded in response. "Okay." Ty stood slowly, releasing his hand from Amy's to lean over and gently place it in her hair as he leaned down to kiss a place on her forehead below the bandage. "I'll be right back," he assured her in a low voice, taking his time as he moved away from the bed to the door, not making it out into the hall without a few backward glances first.

Ty did manage to take that walk down to the nurses' station, waiting for them to find the Ziploc bag with Amy's ring and broken cell phone. Ty took it and held the ring inside the bag against his fingers.

_"With this ring, I thee wed," Amy placed the white gold band on Ty's finger, her electric blue gaze rising to meet his green one with that loving smile she only had for him. _

_She lifted her own left hand then, barely able to remain standing still as her smile widened when Ty took her own band from Caleb. He held her delicate hand in his own as he positioned the ring at the edge of her fourth finger. "With this ring, I thee wed," Ty repeated, sliding it onto her hand._

"Can I help you with anything else?" The nurse who handed Ty the baggy asked, causing him to snap out of the memory and look up at her, stumbling over his thoughts for a moment.

"Uh, do you have a phone I can use?" Since he was here, Ty decided he needed to just get it over with as the nurse handed him and old-fashioned telephone, telling him to dial 9 first to make an outgoing call. Ty then made the call to Heartland, getting Lou instead of Jack. He wasn't sure if that was better or worse, but Ty told her what happened as calmly as he could despite being able to hear the gasp on the other end and sudden panic in his sister-in-law's voice. He decided it was probably best to keep the worst of the news to tell in person, though he really wished he didn't have to tell at all. It wasn't the rest of the family he was worried about, but Amy. Ty already knew he wouldn't know how to break it to her, but he wouldn't allow a doctor to do it either. Something like that he preferred to happen in private, just with the two of them because he knew it was going to be heartbreaking and there didn't need to be an audience.

When Ty got off the phone with Lou who promised to get a hold of Jack so Ty didn't have to, he headed straight back to Amy's bedside with her things, thanking the nurse as he retook his seat next to the bed and continued his vigil.

He didn't mean to do it, but managed to fall asleep with his head resting on the bed next to where his hand once again was joined with Amy's. She lay unmoving, but still Ty snapped awake when he felt a hand against his back, jerking his head up to look at who touched him.

"Easy now, it's just us," Jack said, standing beside Tim and Lou. His voice was calm and quiet, but Ty could see the pain and sorrow in his eyes from seeing his granddaughter laying so weak and fragile in the hospital for a second time.

Ty felt so disoriented as he blinked hard to wake himself up again, his eyes finding Amy again to see if anything had changed while he'd been asleep. It hadn't. She hadn't moved so much as a muscle, her head still positioned the same as it had been since he arrived and her arms still laying flat and limp at her sides except for the hand Ty held tightly in his.

"How is she?" Lou asked, her eyes staring at Amy even though she was obviously speaking to Ty.

"No change. They said she'd be out for a couple hours yet." Ty already told Lou that overall Amy would be okay, physically, with time. What he didn't know was how long it would take her to emotionally heal once she woke up and learned their baby was gone. Even he wasn't sure how to cope with it, but he needed to be strong for Amy. She would need him to hold her together and that's exactly what he was going to do.

"So, what exactly happened?" Tim asked then, looking at Ty almost as if looking for just the right words to jump on with an accusal.

"We were leaving the medical center to take a walk through the city when I realized I forgot my wallet in the truck and went back to get it while Amy was on the phone with Lou. After that, I don't know what happened until I heard the car screech and ran to find her laying on the ground," Ty paused when his voice lost its strength, taking a moment to swallow the hard lump in his throat and find it again as Jack placed his hand on his shoulder. "The driver said he didn't see her," he finished, still not understanding how he couldn't. It was a poorly lit parking garage, but surely he'd have seen her from his headlights, which Ty witnessed to be on as they'd illuminated his wife's motionless body.

"So, so you left her?" Of course Tim would take anything he could find. He was upset, just like everyone else, but his way of expressing it just added to the guilt Ty already felt.

"I was gone for not even a minute," Ty argued, still trying to rationalize what happened in his own mind because it made no sense. Not the details of the accident, but the incident itself. Why Amy? Why did it have to happen to her, now, today, when they were so happy and eagerly looking forward to sharing the first images of their baby with the rest of their family. It wasn't fair.

"It's not Ty's fault, Tim. It was an accident, could have happened to anyone." Jack tried to reason, wanting to keep this argument from escalating to the boiling point it reached a few weeks ago at dinner when Ty and Amy announced they were expecting.

"Yeah, but it didn't. It happened to Amy, our Amy." Tim's voice rose, his arm coming out to accentuate his words by gesturing to Amy laying unconscious in the hospital bed in front of them.

"Excuse me," a nurse popped her head in with a small disapproving frown. "Please keep your voices down or move into the waiting area, there are patients trying to rest." She looked pointedly at each of them in turn before passing a glance at Amy and moving on down the hall.

"She's right, come on. Let's let Amy rest." Lou suggested, trying to begin herding everyone toward the door.

"No, I'm staying here." Ty shook his head, not bothering to make an attempt to move or get up.

"Well I'm going to try to find someone who actually knows something." Tim ran a hand through his hair before vacating the room in search of a doctor with some answers. Ty looked up as he left, dreading the thought of Tim learning of the baby first and just what kind of heated discussion that would cause.

"Ty," Jack looked down at him, Ty feeling the older man's eyes on him and slowly meeting his gaze, speaking words he didn't need to say out loud.

"I'm not leaving her." Ty told him firmly, directing the declaration to Lou as well. "Not again," he added, his eyes falling to Amy's face, guilt so heavy in his chest it was suffocating.

There was a pause when neither Lou or Jack did anything but study Ty, but Jack was the first to move, nodding toward Lou who understood and followed him out into the hall toward the waiting area, once again leaving Ty alone with his tormented thoughts of desperation for Amy to wake up, of dread for what would happen when she did, and despair for the situation in general.


	17. Chapter 17

Tim's hands smacked down on the counter of the nurse's station, causing the woman sitting behind the desk to jump a little at the sudden noise and look up at him with the beginnings of an irritated frown. "Can I help you, sir?"

"I need to speak with the doctor in charge of my daughter's case. Her name's Amy Flem-, uh, Borden." Tim demanded, stumbling over Amy's name. After a year of no longer being a Fleming it still hadn't quite caught up to him yet.

The nurse moved over to her computer and typed Amy's name into the system, waiting for her information to appear, drawing out Tim's impatience. "That would be Doctor Mathers. I'll page him for you, have a seat." She threw her eyes over toward the little waiting room right across the hall, directing Tim in that direction so he wouldn't stand there and crowd her.

Tim glanced toward the waiting area but didn't move to go sit there, instead shifted off to the side and leaned against the counter. "It's okay, I'll wait." The nurse sighed and tried not to roll her eyes as she picked up the phone to get the page out over the speaker system when Jack and Lou joined Tim.

"I can't believe this," Tim started, turning his back on the nurse and folding his arms over his chest with a shake of his head. "If she hadn't-"

"Don't you even go there," Jack raised an accusing finger to cut him off. He knew where Tim was going to go with that statement and was in no way going to allow him to place blame on anyone, or anything, for what was nothing but an accident. "It was an accident, Tim. A case of wrong place, wrong time."

"Yeah? What about that driver, huh? Where the hell is he in all of this?" In Tim's mind, there was always someone to blame. He could place blame on any one of them, including himself, but right now he chose to split it between Ty and this driver.

"I don't know, Tim, why don't you go down to that parking garage and see if he's still around," Jack snapped back, so tired of his ex-son-in-law's bull when it did nothing to help situations and usually tended to make them worse than what they started out as.

"Can you two just stop, please? Placing blame isn't going to change the fact that it happened and Amy is laying in there…" Lou placed her hand in front of her mouth when her voice cracked and tears started to well in her eyes before she could finish what she intended to say.

"Anyway, it's my fault," she said after taking a moment to get a hold of herself again. "I was the one on the phone with her when she got hit. I was frustrated because I just wanted to know how the appointment went and to see those ultrasound photos and she and Ty decided to stay a few more hours in the city and I… God, I was so stupid and selfish. If I hadn't gotten upset Amy wouldn't have been on the phone and…" Lou's voice faltered again.

Tim's face fell when he saw Lou's guilt take hold of her, realizing then how his mission to find someone to blame was affecting her when she already felt as if it were her fault. It made his heart sink to see her in tears, upset with herself for having been the reason Amy was distracted and not paying attention to where she was walking. Lou was right in thinking she could be to blame, but that wasn't fair. She didn't deserve to carry that around with her. "Lou…" Tim said quietly, reaching out to wrap his arm around her and pull her into him, rubbing his hand along her back. "It's okay, honey. It's not your fault."

"Yes it is! It is my fault. I called her. I should have just texted her back, but I had to call her…" Lou pressed her eyes shut with her chin resting on her dad's shoulder, reaching her hand up to wipe at the few tears that began seeping from her eyes and was thankful that she'd left Georgie to babysit Katie so they weren't here to see their mother like this. She was supposed to be strong for them but right now she felt everything but.

"If we're going to play the blame game, then each and every one of us is going to lose, including Amy. It's going to do nothing but cause problems we don't need to deal with right now and won't do anything to give us the things we need to hear right now. Like Amy is going to be fine. Did you forget that part? She may be be a little beaten and bruised, but she's alive and will be okay in time." All Jack wanted to do right now was look to the bright side of everything. Amy was alive, that's what mattered. That's all that mattered and that's what everyone should be happy about and rallying around.

"But what about the baby, Grandpa? What if… what if it didn't survive?"

"She can always have another baby, Lou. When the time is right," Tim answered, causing Lou to jerk away from him with a look of contempt.

"How can you say that? That poor innocent life could have just been destroyed, but oh well, it's replaceable. I can't believe you. That baby is a part of our family, Dad. My niece, or nephew, your grandchild. How can you be so heartless?!" Lou was appalled, unable to wrap her mind around Tim's attitude toward this whole pregnancy in general. She didn't understand why he was so against it. So he wanted Amy to rise to the top of the equine world, but that was no excuse to dismiss her pregnancy as an obstacle preventing her from doing it.

But Tim was shaking his head, reaching out for Lou again feeling like he'd just been slapped from the look she gave him. "No, Lou, that's not what I was trying to say. I-" But he was cut off when the doctor approached, asking if they were Amy's family. They nodded, gathering around him as he leaned over the counter to dig through the files next to the nurse for Amy's.

"We were told she's going to be okay." Lou said, looking to the doctor for confirmation.

"Yes, she will fully recover with time and proper care, but as I told her husband she's going to need to remain her for a couple days for further observation just to make sure no further problems arise."

"Further problems… like what?" Tim asked, not liking the sound of it.

"Well, she hit her head pretty hard and while there was no sign of internal bleeding and her motor functions are fine, we won't know if there was any real damage until she wakes up. If there is any damage to her frontal lobe, it'll be more emotional and behavioral based than physical, so we can't assess it until we can speak with her. As for her other physical injuries, uh, she has a couple fractured ribs that collapsed her lung on that side, but we were able to place a tube into her chest to pull out the air and allow the lung to properly expand again. But none of her vital organs were punctured or very severely damaged." Though there was quite a bit to process, the doctor was speaking slowly and studying each of their expressions to determine if they were following and where he might need to elaborate, trying his best not to speak in medical terms but with words they'd be able to comprehend. "However," he started again, not wanting to deliver this news but it was a part of Amy's injuries that needed to be addressed. "the trauma to her abdomen caused the fetus she carried to be aborted."

"Ab-aborted?" Lou repeated, feeling the color drain from her face when the doctor nodded.

"Truth be told, if the accident hadn't terminated the pregnancy, it's probable that she wouldn't have been able to carry to full term from her injuries and would have miscarried anyway. As terrible as it sounds, it's better that it happened this way."

"Better?" Tim blurted out, not understanding how that was "better."

"Easier, I should say. She wasn't very far along, so there was no true bond between her and the fetus yet as there would have been later on when she would start to feel it."

"Easier… why don't you go in there when she wakes up and tell her that? Tell her she just lost her child and then see how much easier it is. I bet you don't have kids, do you?" Tim snapped.

The doctor took a deep breath and studied Tim, watching the man become worked up and almost hostile, but remained calm himself, knowing it wasn't his job to get personal. "No. I don't," he admitted, already having had this argument a number of times over the years, so he already knew what Tim was going to say.

"So, so you really have no idea how this is going to affect my daughter. Don't tell us it's best or easier this way when the fact of the matter is, her baby just died." The words flew out of Tim's mouth with the force of the ache that just took over his chest when reality just came crashing down on top of him. It hit him like a ton of bricks and he was left standing there just staring hard at the doctor and clenching his jaw tight to ward off any real emotion that now threatened to invade the steel that just melted away.

The doctor just continued to watch Tim calmly, waiting for him to finish before looking to Jack and Lou, letting Tim's irritation roll off of him and let it go. He was upset; it was understandable and there wasn't a thing he could say that would change it or make it better. He just told them like it was. "As I told her husband, she's going to be out for another couple of hours, so I suggest going home and getting some rest or getting comfortable there in the waiting area. Cafeteria is just downstairs," he told them, pausing to see if they had any further questions before giving a nod of departure and returning to his rounds.

Lou stood fighting tears, swallowing hard and staring down at the floor. She took a slow breath before lifting a heated gaze to her father. "This is your fault. You wanted this to happen. You've been against that baby from the beginning. Well, guess what, Dad, you won. Are you happy now?" Lou's voice shook with rage and hurt as she stormed off back toward Amy's room.

"Lou-" Tim started to stop her, feeling that knife rip further into his chest, but stood his ground and watched her go. His eyes shifted over to Jack who was looking at him rather indifferently.

"Go ahead, say it."

"Say what?"

"You know what."

"It amazes me that it took them losing that baby for you to realize you were a damn fool. Maybe one day you'll learn a lesson before it's too late." Jack shook his head, then followed Lou back to Amy's room.

Tim remained there in the hall, pulling his hat from his head and running a distressed hand through his hair. Jack was right, he never seemed to come to the right conclusions until the consequences were already staring him in the face. That was how he'd always been, though, diving head first, full speed ahead. It got him in enough trouble in the past, even he would have thought he'd know better by now, but he still lived with the mentality of a rodeo cowboy - all or nothing, every ride.


	18. Chapter 18

Ty looked up from watching his thumb rub over Amy's hand when Lou returned to the room looking ashen. It didn't take more than that for Ty to figure out what upset her. "I guess you talked to the doctor," he assumed with his eyes falling away from his sister-in-law.

Lou had been spaced out as she wandered back to Amy's room, heartbroken and scared for her sister. She knew better than most how both excited and nervous Amy was about becoming a mom, Lou probably being excited enough for the both of them. She'd been waiting forever for her and Ty to break that news. Though, admittedly, her anxiety from the matter wasn't nearly at bad as when she'd been waiting for Ty to pop the question. All the back and forth gave her whiplash. This, though. This felt like a huge slap in the face. She stared almost blankly at Ty for a moment when he spoke to her, having to take the time to process what he just said. "Yeah. Yeah, we did." Her gaze wandered to her sister still asleep and blissfully unaware of what was happening outside the confines of her own mind.

Ty said nothing, merely nodding in response because he really had no idea of what to say and feared opening his mouth would weaken the wall he erected to get him through these next few hours until Amy woke up.

At his lack of voice, Lou returned her eyes to him, watching him try to hold himself together, distracting his mind by running his hand back and forth along Amy's forearm. She wanted to say something but the words 'I'm sorry' just seemed so generic and weak. As she studied Ty, though, she realized that probably the best thing to do for him right now was to leave him be. "Call when she wakes up?"

Ty again nodded, lifting his eyes to Amy's face for the umpteenth time as if expecting her to open her eyes as if on cue. He still wasn't sure if he wanted her to or not, not yet ready to break the devastating news that he knew would crush her.

Lou stepped up beside the bed to delicately touch her hand to Amy's head in parting before leaving Ty to be alone with his wife. She caught Jack in the hall on his return. "Ty's going to let us know when she wakes up," Lou informed him, causing Jack to stop and cast a glance toward the room, taking a moment to catch what Lou was getting at. In the end he nodded and extended his arm behind her back to guide her back toward the lobby.

Tim was pacing the line of chairs in the waiting area, running his hand through his hair while the other held tightly to his hat. He paused and looked up when he caught sight of Lou and Jack. "Is she awake," he asked anxiously.

Lou settled her hard gaze on him, hesitating a moment before Jack spoke up to answer instead. "Not yet. We're going to leave them some space for now."

"Space?" Tim wanted to protest, to say Ty didn't need space and that he had no intentions of leaving until Jack once again held a hand up to stop him.

"He's got enough on his mind without us here breathing down his neck. He'll call when Amy wakes up. There's not much else we can do here in the mean time so we might as well go home and get some real work done."

There was a pause where Tim contemplated continuing to argue. He came with Lou and Jack, so if he decided to be hardheaded and stay, he'd be without a ride home, but at least he'd be here for when Amy woke up. Still, after a glance toward Amy's room with Ty keeping his vigil, decided not to create any more tension. "Okay. No, you're right. Won't be much use sitting around." Tim nodded, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself of that as he placed his hat back on his head and walked with Lou and Jack back out to the truck.

The ride back to Hudson was painfully quiet, everyone settled in their own thoughts and worries, no one daring to bring up anything to do with Amy or the accident, and especially not the baby. They dropped Tim off back at his truck before Jack and Lou made the rest of the journey back to Heartland where Georgie was sitting with Katie out on the porch playing with her toy horses. The girls looked up, Georgie walking with her little sister and helping her down the few steps to meet Lou and Jack on the walking path.

"Is Amy okay?" she asked anxiously, her dark eyes filled with concern. One look at her daughters and Lou almost broke into tears again, but she swallowed them down and reached out to take Katie's hand, placing the other on Georgie's shoulder to turn her back toward the house.

"She will be. Come on inside and get a snack." Lou tossed a look over her shoulder to see Jack heading in the opposite direction toward the barn, figuring he was checking on the horses as he figured Amy would be asking him to do.

"What happened?" Georgie was asking as she settled into a kitchen chair beside Katie while Lou opened the fridge to find something to give the girls that would also keep herself busy.

Lou ended up pulling out a couple apples and dug into the cabinet for a jar of peanut butter, closing her eyes as she faced away from the girls and took a deep breath. Sooner or later Georgie was going to learn the fate of her much-anticipated cousin and Lou really wasn't sure how she would take it, or exactly how she was supposed to tell her. "A car hit her," Lou answered carefully, taking a knife and starting to slice the first apple into sections.

"A car? It's daytime. Didn't the driver see her?"

That seemed to be the question of the day today and an answer no one could really understand. "They were in a parking garage. I guess it was too dark. I really don't know, Georgie."

There was a silence after that while Lou finished slicing up apples and scooping peanut butter into a dish then turned to place them on the table for the girls to share. But while Katie was first to reach out and take a slice of apple, Georgie remained staring at the table, biting on her lip.

"Hey." Lou moved around the table to squat beside her. "She's going to be okay. Ty's there with her. She'll be home in a few days but I promise next time we visit we'll bring you along so you can see for yourself, okay?"

Georgie nodded, turning her brown gaze toward her mother. "So, the baby is okay then, too?"

She knew it was coming, eventually, but hoped it wouldn't be now, today, so soon after she just learned herself and was still processing it. But Georgie asked and Lou knew she couldn't lie to her or divert the conversation away because she didn't want to talk about it. She was old enough now to hear things like this and certainly mature enough to handle it. But that didn't make Lou's task of telling her any easier. It seemed her hesitance to answer was all that Georgie needed, though, to put the pieces together.

"It's not, is it? Please don't lie to me, Mom. I'm not a little kid anymore."

That made Lou smile a little as she reached up to run her hand over Georgie's head. "No. You're not."

"Both of my parents died, remember? You don't need to keep protecting me. I can handle it. The baby… it died, didn't it?" she asked hesitantly.

Tears seeped out of Lou's eyes at Georgie's strength. The girl had seen so much tragedy in her life, when she and Peter adopted her all they wanted was to give the girl a real home and a stable, happy life after she spent so much of hers being shuffled around between foster homes and running away. But Georgie was right, she was a teenager now and with all of the challenges of her past came an ability to cope and accept that life just wasn't fair and a lot of the time downright cruel.

"Yeah, sweetie. It did," Lou finally answered quietly, trying to hold her own tears at bay as she studied Georgie's face. For a moment nothing seemed to happen as they both just gazed at each other, Lou letting the news sink in and allowing Georgie to properly register it. But eventually neither one of them could contain their heartache anymore and the moment Lou saw those tears begin to spill from Georgie's brown eyes, hers began to follow. Georgie didn't say a word, but she didn't have to because they all felt the same.

Lou reached out to wrap her arms around her daughter, Georgie doing the same as she rest her head on her mother's shoulder. Their tears remained silent as Lou's hand rubbed her back in a soothing motion holding onto her tightly.


	19. Chapter 19

Ty was relieved to see everyone leave and again let him be alone with Amy. He was glad they came, but in all honesty didn't have the mental capability to deal with anything more than what he was that very moment. He was thinking about so much, like what he was going to say to Amy when she finally woke up, but when other people were around it was like his brain just went numb and he didn't have a single cohesive thought. Not only could he not focus on anything else, he didn't want to. As her husband, Amy's well-being was first and foremost his priority. He tried not to look at the bandages and scrapes that covered her body, but at the same time they just couldn't be ignored. His gaze lingered on her shut eyes on and off for hours as he sat glued to that chair beside her bed, holding her hand and rubbing his fingers along her arm. He never moved, never let go. Even when he started to nod off again, Ty just leaned down to rest his head on the edge of the bed rather than leaning back to slouch in the chair.

Slowly, Amy felt herself beginning to regain consciousness, but as she did, realized right away that she didn't want to. Her body was so sore and felt so heavy like her blood turned to lead. Her head throbbed so painfully above her right eye that her eyeball actually hurt. Her right side ached each time she breathed in, making the breaths shallow and slow. She lay there fighting off consciousness, wanting to go back to sleep not only to make the pain go away again but because she was so tired. Her eyes were so heavy she couldn't even get them to open without a fight and even when they did they were barely just slits. Her vision was blurry and the light of the room burned and made her head throb, causing her to shut them again. She managed to get a very brief look into her room, which she noticed right away wasn't her room.

There were noises around her that weren't familiar, at least not in the sense that reminded her of home. She could hear something beeping next to her and people talking in the hallway. It was all a little muffled as she was still fighting the line between sleep and being awake. She started moving her fingers, trying to figure out why she was in so much pain and what exactly was hurt. Her right hand moved easily but her left was still trapped in Ty's hand, hindering the movement. Feeling him there, Amy forced her eyes to open again so she could see him, extending her fingers out toward his face that was turned in her direction. The tips brushed delicately over the scruff of his chin.

Ty felt something tickle his face and turned his head to rub against the blanket to itch it away. But the motion woke him and he started to sit up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He focused his gaze on Amy then, blinking a few times when he saw those blue eyes peeking out at him, wondering if he was just seeing things. "Amy." She was awake. Relief and panic flooded into his chest as he shifted to lean toward her head, resting his hand on her shoulder. "Hey. How are you feeling?"

Like her body, her mind felt tired and heavy, even fuzzy. She was trying to piece things together to figure out where she was or what happened before she'd fallen asleep. But when Ty asked her how she was feeling, she was met with another challenge of getting her voice to work. It seemed to take more concentration and effort than it should have. "It hurts," she barely whispered, Ty having to lean in close to actually hear her.

His eyes trailed her body. "Just hang on, let me get the doctor." Ty didn't want to leave her, but forced his hand to let go of hers and went back to the hall to locate a nurse, who in turn went to page Amy's doctor, allowing Ty to return to Amy's room and retake his place at her bedside. She was still awake, which was a surprising relief to Ty as he reached out to take her hand again. "He's on his way," he assured her.

"What happened?" she asked, finding her mind incapable of locating that particular memory at the moment; though she found that trying only made her head ache even more.

Ty looked at her, wondering if she'd suffered some kind of amnesia from the accident. It shouldn't be surprising really considering she hit her head, but scared him anyway that she didn't remember, or was maybe just too disoriented to try at the moment. "There was an accident… when we were leaving the medical center. Don't you remember?" Ty was almost afraid to ask, uncertain of the answer he would receive.

Amy watched him through the haze of her vision and tried to clear away the fog in her mind when Ty said there was an accident. She remembered being at the medical center now that he said it. "Sonogram." They were there for her first sonogram, seeing their little misshapen baby on the screen.

Ty nodded, a cautionary relieved smile pulling at his lips. "That's right. After the sonogram, we were in the parking garage headed out into the city when Lou called." His words were slow as he watched Amy's face for any sign of understanding or not. She was silent for a long time, but Ty could still see her eyes looking at him so he knew she was still awake. "Amy? Do you remember?"

Vaguely. It was like she was trying to pull the remnants of a dream back into her consciousness. She knew it was there and could even make out some details, but still just out of her immediate reach. She could see the garage and remembered sitting in the truck looking at the picture with Ty. They were going to remain in the city for a while longer, but she forgot why, just that Lou had been upset about it.

"Amy?" Ty pressed, searching her eyes that just seemed to glaze over as she struggled to relive those moments.

"Lou wanted to see the pictures." She could hear her sister's disappointed voice on the other end of the phone, but then it cut out like the conversation just ended there. Amy closed her eyes against the pain in her head from both her struggle to remember and the lights stabbing into her sensitive vision.

"Right. You were talking to her when I went back to get my wallet I left in the truck," Ty continued slowly, hoping that him telling her would jog her memory. He watched her face contort with pain and the effort to remember. "It's okay if you can't remember." He didn't want her to further hurt herself.

But Amy was starting to see it. The picture was blurry but if she relived everything from sharing the sonogram image with Ty to watching him walk back to the truck, her memory began to move forward again. Lou's voice cut out because the reception in the garage had been spotty and poor. In her vision, Amy turned to look at a bright flash of light, but her eyes were still closed.

Before Amy could get the picture to clear in her memory, Doctor Mathers came into the room, nodding toward Ty then directing his attention to Amy. "It's good to see you awake Mrs. Borden. I understand you're experiencing some pain?"

Amy opened her eyes to look at the doctor who was hovering over her, looking down at her in a kind way as he waited patiently for her to answer. "My head. And my side." Actually, pretty much her entire body was sore, but those places were the worst.

The doctor nodded as he removed the stethoscope from his neck and began going through all of the usual checks. "They were the places that suffered the greatest trauma. I'll up your morphine dosage to ease the pain and help you sleep. Rest is really what you need for your body to heal. Do you remember what happened?"

Ty just went through that, but Amy was better able to answer the doctor now that she had some of those answers herself and didn't have to go through the process of remembering all over again. "I was in an accident."

"Good. And do you know your name?"

"Amy Borden."

"And who is this? What's his name?"

"That's my husband, Ty."

"Do you know your wedding anniversary?"

Amy paused, a pause that caused the doctor to glance at Ty who stared down at Amy with a concerned expression. "June 16th."

Doctor Mathers looked up at Ty for confirmation. He nodded and that seemed to satisfy the doctor's concern of memory loss. "Good. That's good, Amy. It doesn't seem you've suffered any memory loss. That bump to your head was our biggest concern since brain injuries are hardest to combat. You have a couple cracked ribs from where the car struck and since they didn't puncture any vital organs we're just going to leave them to heal on their own. You're going to feel pretty bad for the next few weeks while your body works on healing itself, so once you're home that means taking it easy. We don't want you having to come back here from reinjuring yourself." He smiled knowingly, aware that many people were not content with being bed ridden even after they started feeling back to their old selves. One wrong move could have them back to square one again.

Amy listened to the doctor, or tried to. Her attention was drifting in and out from her desire to close her eyes and go back to sleep, which caused her thoughts to wander. She waited for him to say how the baby fared in all of this, figuring that since he hadn't said anything that it was doing okay. But when the nurse came to replace her morphine drip with a new one, Amy's mind clicked into place. "That won't harm the baby?" she asked her eyes moving away from the bag to the doctor who stopped talking abruptly and shot a look over to Ty.

He knew this was coming. For hours he agonized over it and tried to mentally prepare himself for it, but the way she asked so blissfully ignorant made Ty's heart ache as his gaze lowered to his wife.

Her eyes moved from the doctor to Ty when she saw him look at her husband. "What?" The way they were looking at each other and now her was making her nervous, which could be heard by the increase of her heart on the monitor beside her bed. "Ty?"

"I'll be back to check on you in a little while," the doctor said, dismissing himself and allowing them to have their privacy.

Amy's head was starting to ache as she stared at her husband, very much disliking the fact that he wasn't answering her. "Ty. The baby's all right… right?"

He looked up the bed at her, trying so hard to open his mouth and get his voice to work but he couldn't form the words and hold his tears at bay at the same time. "Amy…" was all he could say with his voice strained and sounding forced. His hand tightened in hers when he saw her expression change abruptly.

"No… no." Her voice shook and cracked as hot tears began to seep from her eyes. Her head was throbbing so hard she thought it was going to split in two and her silent sobs made her ribs ache. She tried to hold them back, but they came of their own accord.

"I'm sorry, Amy. I'm so sorry," Ty finally said after swallowing the lump in his throat. He leaned up to cradle Amy's face tenderly in his hand, resting his lips against the tears streaming down her cheeks. He wanted so badly to crawl into that bed and wrap her up tightly in his arms and hold her while she cried but he couldn't. Not without making her pain worse. Quietly he shushed her, pulling his head back to look at the heartbreak in her eyes and trying not to let it further shatter him. He told himself he would be strong for her and that's what he was going to be.

Ty ran his thumb over her face to wipe at her tears. "It'll be okay, I promise. You just need to focus on getting better, okay? You need to rest."

"No," Amy groaned, wishing the pain killers would hurry up and do their job so she could cry without causing herself to shed additional tears from the pain. "No, it's not okay, Ty. It's not." Sobs shook her once the words were out and she had to shut her eyes again against the pain that shocked her body. She couldn't tell what was physical and what was emotional anymore, except that she didn't before have such a terrible ache in her chest until then. It felt like it was being tightened in a vice and made it hard for her to breath alongside the pain in her ribcage.

She didn't remember what happened much after that, blacking out entirely from the agony of learning their baby didn't survive the accident. A nurse had come in and injected her with a sedative that lulled her to sleep within a few short minutes, giving Ty a reprieve and chance to fall back into the chair beside her bed.


	20. Chapter 20

After given the sedative, Amy was in and out of consciousness for the next several hours. She slept most of the time, but Ty could see her sleep wasn't restful. She whimpered and mumbled incoherently and if she could move without hurting herself, he was sure the small twitches of her fingers would be more profound throughout the rest of her body. When she was awake she wasn't entirely coherent either, it being obvious that she was still suffering under the effects of the sedative. Her words became a little more understandable then, but a lot of what she said didn't make sense from her groggy drug-induced stupor. Ty rode out those hours the best he could, alternating between sitting and stroking Amy's hand and pacing to keep the circulation flowing in his legs and to stretch out a little to keep himself awake.

When night fell, a nurse appeared with a tray of food for Amy, telling him that when she woke up he should try to get her to eat something. Ty didn't think she would, but nodded anyway so the nurse would just set the tray down and leave.

Somewhere within those long hours, Ty received a phone call from Jack asking how Amy was doing. Ty didn't want to lie to him, but he also had no idea how to answer, not sure himself how his wife was doing. It was hard to tell from the way the medication she was on seemed to muddle her mind and constantly drag her back to unconsciousness.

"I don't know. She's still drifting in and out of consciousness," was Ty's best reply, his voice thick with exhaustion. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so tired. Not even the all-nighter he pulled before a big exam left him feeling this spent.

"_Maybe you should come home for a bit, Ty. You sound like you could use a few hours of sleep yourself_," was Jack's next comment, noticing the heaviness of Ty's voice. He worried for his grandson-in-law just as much as he did his granddaughter, sitting there alone just waiting for something to happen.

"I'm fine. I'll catch a couple hours later." Probably not, but sleep wasn't at all a good enough reason for him to drive all the way back to Hudson, leaving Amy here all alone. He couldn't do it. He wouldn't.

That had been a few hours ago now, though, and Ty actually had caught a few minutes of restless sleep before being awoken by Amy's whimpering. He opened his eyes and turned to look at her, making a face of discomfort as he flexed his neck to work out the kinks from the odd angle he'd fall asleep slouched in the chair.

He watched her lips tremble as she formed inaudible words, her forehead twitching into a frown. Her head rolled to the side as she tried to fight away something in her dream, causing her to groan. Ty moved to reach for her hand, placing his hand on her arm as he had so many times to try and soothe her.

_"Ty?!" Amy shouted, his name echoing around her. It was dark. Why was it so dark? She hated the dark. Turning around and around, she tried to find a light source, something to lead her away from this frightening place. Wherever it was, she didn't want to be here. It sent unpleasant chills down her spine. "Ty…" Why wasn't he answering her? Panic seized her as she stumbled forward, totally blind. She couldn't even see her hands in front of her face it was so dark. She had no sense of direction but knew she couldn't just stand there. Her hands reached all around her trying to feel for a wall or something to guide her while her feet took one careful step after another. She wanted to run, but because she couldn't see, didn't want to risk hitting a wall or falling off a cliff or stumbling into God knows what. "Ty, please… please help me," her voice shook with fear, afraid she was going to be lost in this darkness forever. She didn't want to be here. She wanted to go home._

_Amy froze when she caught a new sound penetrating the silence that surrounded her. Her labored breathing was the only thing she could hear before, but now there was something else. Pausing, Amy held her breath to listen. "…Ty?" She called again into the darkness._

_"Amy!" She spun around, eyes searching through the black abyss. _

_"Ty?" Amy took a step in the direction of the voice, but paused again when the noise from just a moment ago became louder. When she turned back toward it, there was a light in the distance in the shape of a doorway. Her heart jumped into a sprint as she forgot all about Ty's voice and headed for the light. Throwing caution to the wind, she broke into a run toward it before it could disappear. It grew larger as she drew closer, the sound becoming louder to where Amy realized it was a baby crying. _

_She slowed as she approached the open door, looking into what appeared to be a hospital nursery, but when she entered the room there was only one crib. Peering into it, Amy saw it was empty. So where were those cries coming from?_

_"Amy." Ty's voice was right behind her, causing her to jump, startled, as she turned to look at him. _

_"Ty… the baby…" She was confused, still able to hear the crying child as if it were in that bassinet right behind her._

_"It's not here."_

_"Where is it?" But he didn't answer, only turned to look back through the doorway into the darkness. Amy followed his gaze, the cries growing faint as she stepped away from the empty bassinet, but hesitated in the doorway. "I don't want to go back into the dark."_

_"You must. He needs you." _

_"No…" When she turned to look for Ty again, he was gone. "Ty? Ty, please don't make me. Please."_

_"I'm right here, Amy." His voice was faint again, far away and coming from the darkness._

_The dark frightened her. She didn't want to get lost again, but the soft assurance in Ty's voice comforted her, brought her to step out of the light and back into the dark. "Ty, where are you?" _

_"I'm right here," was his distant reply, bringing her to start toward it, pausing to look back toward the nursery, but it was no longer there, swallowed again by the darkness. _

_"Amy!" She jumped at Ty's panicked voice booming from behind her. Whipping around, her eyes widened as she was blinded by a bright flash of light._

Amy's eyes snapped open as she jerked awake, sitting bolt upright in a panicked daze. Her head throbbed, sending black spots swimming before her eyes and she cried out from the stabbing ache in her ribs, squeezing her eyes shut as her hands flew to rest on each place.

"Whoa, whoa… hey," Ty said quietly, having caught Amy in his arms when she sat up. His hands were light on her body, ready to steady her if need be but not touching her to firmly in case he hurt her.

"Ty?" Amy groaned, her eyes pressed shut against the pain.

"It's okay. I'm right here," he assured her, running his hand lightly over her back, watching her pretty face contort with the pain.

_"I'm right here." _The words echoed in her head but brought a sense of security over her she'd felt after hearing them in her dream. She was safe here away from the darkness. "Ty, the baby…" Her voice shook as she tipped her head to rest against him, his arms coming around her to hold her there against him without squeezing her like she could feel he wanted to through the flex of his fingers.

"It'll be okay, Amy," he told her again, firmly believing that it would, eventually. As with everything, time healed. Right now that's what they had to look forward to.

"No… it's my fault." A sob burst out of her lungs without her permission, causing her ribs to smart and in turn opening the flood gates to the rest of them. "It's all my fault. I'm sorry, Ty. I'm so sorry," she cried against him, reaching up to grip a handful of his shirt in her fist.

Ty's jaw clenched against the threat of his own tears listening to Amy's guilt finally begin to settle in. He knew she'd blame herself because he blamed himself - for walking away, for not just moving the truck out to park on the street and pay the damn meter, even for getting her pregnant when he had. They could have been more careful, should have been. They planned to have kids, both of them wanting to be parents, but they were looking further down the line. Not much further, but just not right now. "It's not, Amy. It was just an accident. That's all. It could have happened to anyone, including me." And he wished it had.

Of course it was her fault. She'd been stupidly paying more attention to her cell phone than where she was walking. She might as well have been trying to text and drive from how careless and irresponsible she'd been. She deserved to lose their baby, but Ty didn't. She'd been so excited to see him become a father. He'd have been fantastic at it and she more than anything wanted to give him a child. But, of course, she managed to destroy hope of that now, too. Not forever, they could try again eventually when she was healed and her body capable of handling another pregnancy, but it became just a huge question mark again because she knew she'd be afraid when that time came. Afraid of history repeating itself or that she wouldn't be able to carry a child after the trauma her body suffered through. It scared her and broke her to think she and Ty might not be able to become parents now because of her.


	21. Chapter 21

The few days that Amy had to remain in the hospital were up and down. Amy slept through most of the time; though, from what Ty could tell her sleep wasn't restful. She continued trying to fight her way through the onslaught of nightmares which just left her exhausted and upset when she did finally wake from them. She wouldn't say what they were about, but Ty could venture a guess. When she was awake, she was almost completely quiet and didn't remove her eyes from the television hanging on the wall across from her bed, though he would bet she had no clue what was up on the screen. A lot of the time Ty couldn't tell if she wanted him there with her or not, but couldn't bring himself to leave except for a few hours one afternoon when Jack came and threatened to throw him out himself. It was the first light moment since the accident and Ty was too completely drained of energy to argue. He didn't even realize it until he got in the truck to go home for a bit and couldn't find the strength to even lift his hands to grip the steering wheel at the thought of facing an hour drive home. So he just curled up on the bench seat and passed out until Jack was tapping on the window and saying Amy was awake and asking for him. Ty was awake then, finding the energy returned to his limbs as he climbed out and joined Amy again when she told him she wanted to go home.

Now, at home they were. Amy was walking on her own, but it was obvious every bit of movement pained her from her broken ribs. She was on decent pain meds to help keep her ability to breath and cough regular, but they usually wore off before she was allowed to safely take another dose.

The trailer was pretty much as they left it the morning they left for Calgary. Lou had dropped by a couple of days ago to get some of Amy's things to bring to the hospital during her stay and from the looks of it, took it upon herself to straighten up a bit.

Ty guided Amy to the bed and helped her down onto it. "You all right? Do you want anything?" She'd been quiet since leaving the hospital. Her silence was starting to worry him, but he wasn't going to push her to talk. Not yet, at least. Eventually, they both knew they were going to have to talk about it, but there was time enough for it.

"No, I'm okay," Amy replied with a slow shake of her head, easing herself onto the bed.

The last time Amy felt this empty was after her mother died. She just wanted to disappear and pretend it never happened. She wanted to cry until it didn't hurt anymore, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. The first and last time she'd cried was at the hospital and she just felt numb since then. Things like this happened all the time and women lost babies from less. That's what she kept trying to tell herself, but the guilt from being the cause of it just wouldn't allow her to have that peace of mind. It being an accident was something else she tried to accept, but she couldn't help but think it was somehow fate telling them that they weren't ready to have a baby. That her father was right, and there were other things she had to do with her life first. Mostly, she felt guilty because there was some small part of her that was almost… relieved. Ever since she and Ty announced to the family they were expecting, there was nothing but tension. It was most felt when Tim was around, but so easily spread through the rest of the family. Lou and Grandpa were obviously happy for them, but it seemed no one could have a conversation about the baby without it leading to the admittedly valid arguments her father brought up. The thing about that was, Amy wasn't sure if she wanted all of that exposure anymore. Since that "Miracle Girl" video, it just felt like her life experiences exploded into opportunities that sought potentially life-altering decisions. But whether they were for better or worse, had been the hardest question.

Amy both loved and hated the attention and reputation Heartland and her work was getting because it not only brought in business, but showed that people were starting to realize there were other ways to help their problems than getting rid of their horses. On the other hand, it put a lot of extra pressure on Amy to fix every horse that came to her. As great at her reputation was, it would be destroyed much easier now from all of the public awareness. Amy knew without a doubt that she didn't ever want to stop helping those horses, but she'd been thinking lately that maybe it would have been better all around if she hadn't given in to those clinics with Chase Powers or went on that Ring of Fire tour and just kept Heartland as her mother left it.

Her work aside, Amy couldn't help but think her dad was also right about them trying to raise a baby in this trailer. She leaned back against the pillows as Ty started to unpack her bag for her, looking out at the confined space that was hardly big enough for the two of them. Ty took up most of it just standing there at the table. She tried to picture where they would put a crib and how they'd have to end up changing diapers on the table. It never would have worked for long before something inevitably gave and they ended up back at Heartland with the rest of the family where even the space there was dwindling. With both the diner and Dude Ranch booming with business, Lou and Peter finally had the finances to get a place of their own, but leave it to Lou to be extremely particular about where her children grew up. All the talk of the houses she and Peter look at only reminded Amy of the ranch that got away from her and Ty.

"Amy?" Ty was talking to her, Amy suddenly aware of him watching her as her eyes refocused and looked up at him.

"Huh?"

"Did you want these in the wash or…?" She looked down at the clothes in his hands, trying to figure out why he was asking about them. He lifted the shirt to show her and her stomach almost turned over from the blood stains she saw.

"Throw them out. Throw everything out," she said, turning away and taking a slow breath.

"Okay. I'm sorry. I-" Ty should have known better. Blood was almost impossible to get out anyway. He didn't know why he asked.

"It's fine," Amy interrupted, shaking her head and glancing at him. She didn't want him to be sorry. He had nothing to be sorry about. _She_ was the one who needed to be sorry.

Turning away again, Amy waited for Ty to throw the clothes in a bag and toss it in the garbage, then take it outside to the can. Closing her eyes, she relished in the moment alone she got. For days she felt so claustrophobic and like she was suffocating. All she was able to look at were white walls in confined spaces. That was all she was looking at now, but with Ty outside for those couple of minutes, she finally felt like she was able to breathe. Amy didn't want to tell him she just wanted to be alone; afraid he would think she was pushing him away. She wasn't, not really. She didn't want to, at least. She just wanted time to… process, to come to terms with the fact that she just lost their child without him there waiting for her to break again.

Sighing, Amy started shifting down the bed to lay down, reaching over to straighten out the messed up pillows from their little wrestling game the morning before the accident. She paused when her fingers bumped against something hard, moving the pillow aside to see the baby book she'd bought not long after finding out she was pregnant. Picking it up, Amy moved it over to her lap and opened it up to the tabbed page she'd been reading that morning. She looked at the little illustrations of the developing fetus and felt her heart again start to ache as her lip began to tremble. The tears were stopped abruptly when the door opened and Ty came back, causing Amy to quickly shove the book back under the pillow before turning and swinging her legs over the bed to get up.

"Here, let me…" Ty was quick to reach out to help her, but Amy brushed his hands away.

"I'm fine, Ty. I'm not an invalid. I can get up myself." Her words were a little bitter but she made an attempt for them not to be, feeling the guilt set in when Ty took a step back.

"I'm sorry," she apologized after standing. "I'm just tired of being cooped up inside. It's too much of a nice day to waste lying in bed. Let's go somewhere, or… go for a ride or something." She needed to get out of this trailer. There were too many painful memories here right now that she didn't want to be surrounded by.

Ty did his best to bite his tongue and not comment when Amy snapped at him. They didn't need him trying to defend himself to her and have it turn into some sort of argument. She knew he just wanted to help and make things easier for her, but it didn't seem she was as willing to do the same for herself.

"I don't think riding is a good idea. The doctor said to take it easy for the next few weeks. Why don't we just… go for a walk on the trails?"

Amy had it in her to argue, but knew Ty was right. The doctor didn't say no riding, but that was because he didn't know how much horses had a real impact in her life. Otherwise, she was certain he'd have banned it. She wanted to take Spartan out and let her mind get lost on the trails. It was the best form of therapy if there ever was one, but at this point she'd take anything just to get out of this damn trailer.

**A/N - Okay, so to those who are new to this story, this is from my tumblr account and so far all I've written. So if you were excited that the updates were coming so quickly, it was because I was just copy and pasting. So, I'm sorry to say that they won't be coming as fast anymore since this is where I left off. To those who follow the story on my tumblr, everything from here on out will be new and as I stated in the story description, you will find those new chapters first on my tumblr, but I will post them here as well. =) **


	22. Chapter 22

It really was turning out to be a beautiful late spring day. The summer heat hadn't quite made its way in yet, but the cold winter air was gone for the season, taking any traces of snow with it as new grass and foliage was sprouting and bringing life and color back to the Alberta vista. The only snow to be seen was high atop the Rockies in the distance, but once Amy and Ty stepped into the wooded trails, the mountains disappeared and it was green all around them.

"Looks like that storm last week did some damage," Ty commented when they came upon an old poplar tree blocking the path. Ty made a mental note to come out later with a chain saw to move it out of the way as he stepped on the trunk and hopped over, reaching up to offer Amy assistance as she followed.

"I got it, Ty. I'm fine," she told him, ignoring his outstretched hand and stepping up onto the tree's trunk. It was higher off the ground with the secondary branches at the end holding it up, but not so high that there was real physical effort needed. Still, the step down wasn't as easy as gravity carried her body weight down onto her leg, the shock radiating into her ribs, making her grimace.

"Fine, huh?" Ty raised a brow at her but then raised his hands in surrender when she shot him a look, backing off and just continuing along the defined path between the trees.

As peaceful as the walk through the forest was with only the sounds of nature surrounding them, there was an awkwardness of words unspoken that was making Amy wish that she'd have come out there alone. Ty surely had other things to do than keep watch over her, especially now that she was home from the hospital and on the mend. She didn't need to be babysat or waited on. A few broken ribs didn't leave her helpless, just sore.

"Have you talked to Scott?" Amy asked absently when they fell into step again.

"Uh, no. Not yet." Ty replied, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He hadn't been to work at the clinic since they day before Amy's accident and had yet to call Scott about when he expected to come back. Truth was, Ty didn't know what to tell him.

"Ty, you need to go back to work. I'm perfectly fine taking care of myself. It's just a few bruises and broken ribs." Amy didn't tell him she wanted that time to have for herself, but he really did need to get back to work. It wasn't helping either of them with him just hanging around and playing nursemaid.

"He said to take all the time I needed, and it's more than broken ribs, Amy. Don't you dare pretend like it isn't." Ty's voice was low as he shot her a tentative look.

Amy's jaw clenched as the ache seized her chest again and she was silent for a long moment before looking down toward her hands that she was absently fiddling with. "I know," was her quiet reply. Of course it was more than that, but Amy wasn't ready to go there yet and was presently okay with ignoring it. "But you hanging around me all the time doesn't help and one of us needs to be making an income. Unless you're okay with me going back to work tomorrow-"

"No. Not until the doctors say it's okay."

"Then you need to call Scott and tell him you'll be in tomorrow. I bet you're not too thrilled with Cassandra taking all of your hours, either." Honestly, Amy was surprised that girl stayed this long now that she was out of school and able to go anywhere. Apparently, she was having trouble finding another, or better, position with that whole Jeremy thing still hanging over her head, but no one was at all ready to forget about it, especially with his whereabouts still unknown.

"No, but she wasn't too thrilled with being stuck with them all by herself either, so… it was kind of a lose-lose situation." If Scott didn't have to be on-call all the time, he'd have taken them, but he couldn't always be sitting in the clinic and needed to have someone there in case he had to leave. But Ty understood that Amy pushing him to get back to work wasn't just about the income. He just wasn't sure about leaving her alone either, knowing how she was and that given the opportunity she'd be back at Heartland either working with a client horse or trying to ride. Moving around as opposed to lying in bed was recommended, but it was only supposed to be light work and what Amy did wasn't light.

There was a beat of silence before Ty spoke again. "I just want to make sure you're okay before jumping back in full-time."

"Ty, I'm fine. I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself."

Stopping, Ty tried to study her when she turned to look at him. "Are you? This is the most we've talked in days. You barely said two words to me since you learned about the b-" He stopped when Amy turned to walk away from him.

"Amy, wait. Come on," he called after her, catching up in a few quick strides to stop her by reaching to grab her arm. "We can't just ignore this." He didn't want to push her into talking if she really wasn't ready. It had only been a few days, but they couldn't avoid it forever. She had to know that. He wanted to talk about it, to figure out how she was coping and if they were going to ever try again. Having children had always been something they agreed they wanted, but Ty didn't know if losing their first had changed Amy's mind or not.

Her body turned slightly in his direction when he pulled her to a stop, but her head continued looking ahead down the trail, refusing to look at him as her eyes stung from the threat of tears. "Well, I don't want to talk about it right now, okay?" Amy snapped, finally turning to throw him an irritated scowl in order to mask the anguish building in her chest.

Ty could see it. In the way her jaw tightened against the tremble and her eyes narrowed against the sting. How she turned away at the mention of the baby and then refused to look at him again right away while she got a hold of herself. She wasn't okay. She was hurting and from the look of it either didn't want him to see or thought pretending she wasn't would make it go away.

"Okay… okay. We don't have to right now, but we need to eventually. This isn't something that's just going to go away, Amy. You need to face it before you can let it go. Remember when my dad died? I was so… angry at him and feeling guilty for not being able to forgive him for doing the things that he did. But I had to, Amy. I had to forgive him before I could let him go, or else I'd still be spending my life hating and resenting a dead man, and probably my mom too." Ty spoke gently while running his hand along her arms then reaching up to tuck a loose strand of golden hair behind her ear, but Amy was shaking her head and fighting to maintain control of her emotions.

"This isn't the same, Ty. This was our…" She stumbled over the word, pressing her mouth shut when her lip started to tremble and looking away from him.

Ty swallowed. "I know." He wasn't going to make her say it. "But we're still going to need to make peace with it before we can move on. When you're ready, I'll be right here," he assured her, pulling her into his arms and resting his lips in her hair. "I'll call Scott when we get back home tonight, though, okay? Give you some time alone tomorrow. Just promise me you won't try working with that new horse." Ty knew better than to accept Amy's promise to take it easy. So as his back-up plan he was going to commission Caleb to hang around and keep an eye on her if she happened to show up at the ranch, which he had a high suspicion that she would.

Resting her chin on his shoulder, Amy sniffed and blinked to get rid of the tears that pooled in her eyes, reaching up to wipe at them before Ty would see them. "Okay. I won't, I promise." She didn't have intentions of going anywhere tomorrow where she'd run into people who were going to ask how she was coping and feeling and watching her like a hawk. She knew better. What Amy wanted was to be alone.


	23. Chapter 23

"Thank God you're back. _Never_ leave me to cover for you again. I've been here for so long I can't get the smell of antiseptic out of my hair." Ty's eyes widened as he took a cautious step back when Cassandra popped up from behind the computer.

"It's only been a few days, Cass. Relax." Really? His first day back and he was already going to be attacked about the schedule that he didn't even make.

"It's been five days, actually, and I work over the weekend so I won't have had a day off in over a week!"

Ty rolled his eyes when his back was to the girl as he checked out who their new patients were, taking a clipboard off of the cage of a Corgi to examine. "The whole reason I had to take off was because my wife was in a car accident and lost our baby. So don't pretend like you're the victim in all of this because you were stuck working a few extra hours. Grow up, Cassandra." He turned to glare at her, seeing her expression soften before flipping a page on the clipboard and turning away from her again.

"Ty, I… I'm sorry. Scott didn't tell me why, so I just assumed-"

"You just assumed I was playing hooky? That I was shooting pool and drinking beers at K.O. and thinking 'oh, well, Cassandra can just cover for me'? Seriously?" She should know him better than that after working together for over four years. Frankly, he was insulted that she thought that lowly of him.

Cassandra looked ashamed and seemed to deeply regret whatever she'd been thinking of him the last few days. "Something like that. Ty, I am sorry. I just didn't know what was going on. Is Amy okay?"

It took a pause and a deep breath for Ty's irritation to ease away, but when it did all he felt was the exhaustion. Dropping the clipboard on the exam table, Ty stared down at it, running his hands over his face. "I don't know. I don't think so, but she's trying to pretend like she is. I just think she's afraid to acknowledge it."

"Well, have you asked her? Don't take this the wrong way, but I've gotten the feeling that communication isn't the strongest part of your relationship," she said with a raise of her brow, leaning back in the computer chair and wiggling a pen between her fingers.

Communication had been a bit of an issue with them in the past, but they learned from those mistakes and Ty liked to believe they were beyond keeping secrets. This wasn't exactly the same thing as what caused them turmoil in former years and Ty realized that whatever Amy wasn't telling him it was because she either wasn't sure how to convey those feelings because she wasn't able to cope with them herself yet, or just didn't want to face them at all. Ty ignored that part of Cassandra's comment, though, as he picked up the clipboard again and hooked it back to the cage. "I don't want to force it out of her if she's not ready. She only just got out of the hospital yesterday and I think I should give her some time to… just come to terms with it on her own first. She knows we have to talk about it – that I want to - and I told her that I'll be ready whenever she is."

Cassandra looked skeptical, but just shrugged and let it go. "Okay. By the way, you're staying here today while I go out to get lunch. I can't stand to eat another soggy sandwich."

* * *

Amy lay in bed long after Ty left for the clinic. She was awake, aware of the settling creaks of the trailer and the irregular drip of the faucet, her ears tuning into the birds happily chirping outside around the feeder she erected at the end of last summer to help the birds get a jump through the winter. But her eyes were closed and she remained unmoving with her hand pushed up beneath her pillow, finger running along the edge of the book she kept hidden beneath it.

Even with those sounds all around her the trailer felt eerily quiet and still. So quiet, her thoughts were screaming at her through flashes of memories from the day of the accident. She'd replayed it over and over again all night long, not getting so much as an hour of sleep before waking up again. Amy was afraid of the nightmares. Afraid of what she would see when they came. Mostly they consisted of dark hallways and crying infants, occasionally flashes of light that would make her head throb and wake her up in tears. It had only been a few days, yet every time she closed her eyes it was like suffering through a whole night of relentless torment.

Her heart had never hurt this badly before. Not even when she and Ty were broken up or apart and his whereabouts was unknown and the possibility of him being dead was very real. She'd had hope then. Hope that she desperately clung to that he was still alive and that he'd come back to her. She had no hope now. Their baby was gone and it wasn't coming back.

It hadn't been very big. Not big enough to be noticed or felt though her belly, but it had been there and it had been theirs. They saw it on the monitor, listened to its tiny fluttering heart, and basked in the excitement of becoming parents for too brief a time. Maybe it was too soon to have a true connection with it, too soon to determine if it was a boy or a girl, and too soon to become parents, but it was _their_ baby. Ty's baby. And it was gone.

Tears squeezed from Amy's closed eyes, sliding down over the bridge of her nose and onto her pillow as they did every night. Her finger continued gliding along the pages until she opened her eyes to the day and started to push herself up while wiping her face. She pulled the baby book from beneath the pillow and stared down at it in her lap, tracing the letters of the title then opening it again to the tabbed page. She never looked further than that, not wanting to see what she would be missing as her pregnancy progressed with a child that no longer existed.

It hurt to think that seven months from now they would have had a baby. They'd have learned if it would be a son or daughter, picked a name, welcomed the child to the Bartlett-Fleming-Morris-Borden family by christening a stone of the Heartland fireplace, and began their new lives as parents. Now that seven months would be swallowed by time and the only reminder they would have of that lost child would be a crumbled computer print-out.

Closing the book, Amy's gaze lifted toward her bag that still sat on the table from the day before. Getting up, she went to dig through it for the photo, finding it slipped neatly into a side pocket. She pulled it out and slid into the recliner beside the table, staring at the grainy misshapen image and wondering if Ty still had his folded up in his wallet as it had been the day it was taken. He'd been so excited, so eager for that appointment to see his child for the first time. Amy hated that she'd bestowed any doubt in him beforehand that she didn't want their child just because she cared a little bit too much about what her family thought. The relief she felt was swallowed by the guilt for realizing she felt it. She wasn't relieved. She was heartbroken and devastated. Amy wasn't new to experiencing the lesson behind the saying that you never truly appreciated something until it was gone and it was exactly what she was feeling now as the air seized in her lungs before a sob escaped through her lips.

Turning the photo over, Amy placed it face down on the table and took a long, slow breath, cleared her throat then forced herself to get up. She didn't know what she was thinking would happen if she stayed alone in the trailer all day. That she would reach some sort of calming peace with what happened or find strength in her loss to move on? No, what it felt like was going to happen was she would be sitting there in an empty trailer trying not to bawl her eyes out as she berated herself for being so stupid for not paying attention to where she was walking, and tormenting herself with the what ifs and what could have beens while staring at the photo of a child that would never grow up.

Pulling herself together, Amy pushed her mind to focus on something else while she got dressed around the ache in her ribcage. After brushing her teeth she grabbed the pain medication the doctor prescribed her and swallowed the recommended dosage, pushing the bottle into the pocket of her jeans before heading out the door to Heartland.


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N - I have a fairly good layout of the rest of this story, but it's hard to say how many more chapters there will be, so I can't answer that with a definite number. However, there will be plenty more to come and, yes, the melancholy feel will eventually be lifted and the ending a happy one - for those that might have been concerned with the depressing rut it fell into.**

"What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to take it easy," Caleb asked when Amy pulled up in front of the barn and climbed out of the truck.

It figured someone would be around the ranch. Amy didn't expect the place to be deserted, especially when she was supposed to be out of commission for a while and the slack needed to be picked up. But hopefully that someone knew better than to open his mouth and start asking her how she was feeling and coping and other things she didn't want to discuss. She was here to get some work done, not talk about her feelings.

"I can't be in that tiny little trailer anymore. I'll lose my mind sitting in there. I needed to get out and do something productive. How is that new mare settling in?" Amy quickly redirected as she wandered over to the paddock off to the side of the round pen where Caleb had turned Chloe out, the mare that arrived the morning of Amy's accident.

Ty had warned Caleb that Amy might show up and to be vigilant and stick around the farm if she did to ensure she didn't do anything stupid that would get her hurt. Glancing toward Chloe, Caleb then realized he probably should have turned the mare out in one of the back fields where it wouldn't have been worth Amy's time to try and catch her, but considering she was a new client, it was safer to leave her on her own for now.

"Seems to be pretty mellow. She didn't eat all of her breakfast this morning, but that's not unusual when a horse is in an unfamiliar place." He followed after Amy as she offered her hand for the mare to sniff, jumping when she pinned her ears and bared her teeth in attempt to bite, resulting in Amy instinctively smacking her across the mouth. The mare leaped back in fright, Amy taking a startled step back herself when she realized what she just did while Caleb gaped at her in astonishment.

"I… I'm sorry… I don't know why I did that." She stared at the mare that was watching her warily from the far side of the paddock.

"Not gonna say that's not how most people handle that sort of thing, but I've never seen you hit an animal, even when they deserve it." That definitely wasn't an Amy thing to do and now Caleb really understood why he was going to need to find a reason to hang around the ranch if Amy was going to be there.

"That's because they don't ever deserve it." She frowned at Caleb, but was more disgusted with herself for reacting like she had.

Amy returned her attention back to Chloe, reaching up to take her halter from the post it was hanging on as she opened the gate. "Hey girl." She spoke soothingly to her, standing just inside the gate for the mare to get used to her being in her space.

Caleb stood on the outside, holding the gate closed but not latched in case he needed to open it for Amy to make a quick getaway, watching her uncertainly. "Amy, I don't think you should be in there with her right now." If she managed to get hurt on his watch, Ty would kill him and Caleb rather liked himself.

"It's fine, Caleb," Amy told him over her shoulder, keeping her attention on the mare.

"You're a pretty little thing, aren't you? I'm sorry a struck you. I didn't mean it." She inched closer one slow step at a time, watching the horse's ears swivel back and forth and her tail flick.

"Good girl." Amy continued her approach, able to make it within arm's length. Caleb held his breath as she reached out to offer her hand for Chloe to sniff, the mare's nostrils flaring as she watched Amy, who was then realizing she should have brought a few peppermints with her. They were often and effective bribe. Typically, she had them stuffed in her pockets, but it slipped her mind until then.

"Easy… good girl." Amy's movements were still very slow and deliberate as she started to raise her arms to slip on the halter. The mare threw her head away from Amy, backing from her again until she bumped into the metal panel of the pen, which startled her into lunging forward.

"Amy!" Caleb rushed into the pen as Amy stumbled back, tripping over her own feet in the process and landing hard on her butt, gritting her teeth as her ribs smarted on impact.

"I'm fine," she told him when he'd shooed the horse away from her, taking slow breaths against the ache in her side. Getting her feet back under her, she got up again, brushing dust from her backside and looking up at Caleb who stood between her and Chloe.

"You shouldn't be doing this, Amy. If Ty knew-"

"Well he doesn't need to know, does he? Just catch her and bring her into the round pen, okay?" Amy shoved the halter in his hands as she left the paddock with her hand applying pressure to her sore ribcage. The painkillers were supposed to have kicked in by then, or soon, hopefully, but just in case Amy reached into her pocket to take out the bottle and swallow two more.

Amy moved toward the barn as Caleb started walking toward the pen with the horse in tow. It was obvious Chloe didn't want to follow, but with a few tugs and clicks of the tongue she begrudgingly let him lead her into it. Amy stepped in after them when Caleb had Chloe to the center of the ring, shutting the gate and watching as he made an attempt to unclip the lead.

"Are you sure about this?" Caleb stopped when he saw the look of contempt on Amy's face, conceding. "Okay, but I'm staying here." It was a hard decision to make between whose shit list he wanted to be on – Ty's or Amy's. Neither one of them would be good, but at the moment he figured Ty's would be easier to reason his way off of when he brought up Amy's stubbornness and apparent lack of self-preservation.

"Fine. Sit on the fence and don't move," she instructed, taking the lead from him to use to drive the mare to the perimeter. Caleb obliged, climbing up the six feet of fence to perch himself on top of it where he had a nice view of both girl and horse.

"Get up," Amy called to Chloe, tossing the end of the lead at her to get her to move forward. The mare broke into a fast extended trot, snorting, with her tail flying high. Even though her trot was fast and Amy had to jog every few paces to keep up, it was easy enough to keep up with the horse and continue to drive her on.

And on.

And on.

Amy lost track of how long she was chasing Chloe around, first one way then the other, then back the other, but she was growing tired as could be seen by her open-mouth breathing and slow reaction time when the mare would try to turn out toward the fence or find a corner where there were none. The only positive thing about it was that the pain killers had kicked in, numbing the soreness of her ribcage.

Caleb's butt went numb long ago and he shifted every which way on the rail to get some feeling back again, growing bored and dizzy with watching Amy chase this horse relentlessly. Join-up was definitely a sight to see when it happened, but until that magic moment it was really dull and uneventful unless the horse was psychotic or something, which Chloe wasn't. Still, Caleb kept his word to Ty and kept his eye on Amy even though he probably had something else he needed to be doing. If Jack caught him hanging out like he was, he'd surely get a tongue-lashing, but the older man was out running cattle with Tim and wasn't due to be back until, Caleb glanced down at his phone, soon. Morning was over and it was afternoon, moving onto one o'clock, which meant Amy had been at it with the mare for close to two hours.

"Hey, why not give that horse a break and come to Maggie's for lunch? I'm starving," Caleb suggested, lifting himself from the rail and getting ready to climb down to help Amy get Chloe back into her pen.

"You go. I'm not hungry," Amy told him between lungfuls of air. She knew she needed to eat something, having skipped breakfast, but she didn't feel hungry. Instead, she was getting flustered that Chloe refused to show signs of wanting to join up. Her ear was turned toward Amy, but that was all she offered. Each time Amy took the pressure off, she'd turn away and try to do her own thing rather than stop and look in toward her.

"Amy, come on. You're not going to get anywhere with that horse today. Let it go and try again tomorrow." _Or in a few weeks_, but he left that part of the thought in his head.

Slowing to a stop, Amy sighed and watched Chloe come to a halt as well, nostrils flared and barrel heaving as she too took large breaths from being forced to run in countless circles for hours. Still when Amy moved toward her, the mare again took off.

"Fine," she mumbled through gritted teeth, storming over to one of the gates that led into another enclosure and shoving it open to chase the mare through. That would be easier for next time so she wouldn't have to rely on Caleb, or someone else, to handle Chloe if she still couldn't get near her.

"I don't understand what her deal is. Usually it's men that they tend to shy from because they are bigger and more aggressive, but she was perfectly okay with you." The frustration was evident in her voice as she left the round pen to join Caleb on the other side. She still didn't want to go out to Maggie's, but he was right in saying she wasn't going to get anywhere with that horse and she was tired of running in circles and not getting results. Amy knew that it could take time, but it was discouraging when there wasn't even a hint of the horse wanting to give in.

"Then maybe it was a woman that messed her up some. I know some pretty rough 'n' tumble ladies around the rodeo circuit, and I'm not talking about hoity barrel racers. They're like female jockeys, rare but tough as nails and don't take no crap from nobody, especially patronizing cowboys."

"You mean like you?" Amy smirked, remembering a time several years ago when Caleb insisted she, being a girl, wouldn't be able to break Ghost, the appaloosa Mustang that still roamed the mountains somewhere with his established herd. He hadn't been wrong, but Amy had been stubborn enough to try her damndest to prove herself.

"I wouldn't say that after I tried training a female bronc rider, remember? She wasn't half bad either. She had the skill to make those guys eat their feet for breakfast and the attitude to serve them up right, just not the drive. Shame, really." He shrugged, disappointed it hadn't worked out with Kelly and getting her on the circuit, but at least they had a damn good time trying.

"Yeah, okay, but the owner is a woman and didn't say anything about rough handling or abuse in her past." Amy looked toward Chloe in thought.

"Have you ever had a client that was one hundred percent up front and honest with you?" Caleb asked reasonably. Sometimes it was small things, things they thought were insignificant and not worth mentioning but made all the difference in Amy's job to help their horse. Other times it was deliberate because they didn't want to let on how it was their own fault the horse was acting out.

It wouldn't at all be the first time the truth was withheld and in the rush that Amy was in to get the mare settled so she and Ty could be on their way to Calgary it was possible she might not have asked all of the necessary questions, or caught on to something that would have been of help to her now. "I'll be in the office."

"Wait, you're not coming to Maggie's?"

"Tell Nicole I said hello," Amy called from inside the barn, leaving Caleb stare after her and debate on feeding his empty and grumbling stomach or continue to keep his word to Ty. He couldn't sit around all day, though, and if Amy was going to be making phone calls then he should be okay to leave for like an hour or so.

"I'll bring you back something!" he called after her, thinking that maybe getting her to eat would earn him some bonus points in case Ty learned that Amy had been in that pen with a horse instead of resting.


	25. Chapter 25

Amy slid into the creaky old chair behind the worn wooden desk that she used to find her mother sitting at for hours in the evening updating her client log and adding notes to the journals Amy now used to carry on the work Marion began that gave Heartland its legacy. So many times Amy sat there and tried to see through her mother's eyes when she was doubting herself and her abilities to cure a horse or even deal with her own life problems. She'd barely been fifteen when her mother died which left so little time for her to receive those life lessons and advice only a mother could give. Amy couldn't count the times she desperately wished Marion were still alive to guide her in the right direction or give her answers she eventually found after taking the long way around. She couldn't help but think so many of the mistakes or poor choices she made and now deeply regretted could have been avoided if only she'd been able to turn to and confide in her mother. Of course she had Lou and her grandfather, but even Lou admitted that there were some things only a mother knew.

Staring at the cover of her own client log, Amy was once again wishing her mother were there now. Maybe she wouldn't have opened up to her either if she wouldn't even do it with her husband, but she was still feeling Marion's absence a lot more now than she had in a while. She didn't understand why she reacted the way she had to Chloe when before Amy had all the patience in the world when it came to helping a horse.

Sighing, Amy open the journal to the very bare page she reserved for Chloe's progress, having only the client's contact number and what the horse was being treated for written down at the top. Reaching for the phone, Amy called the mare's owner, Sutton Daniels, hoping to maybe come up with some missing information to help her better figure out how to work with the horse.

Unfortunately after a short conversation, Amy wasn't any further than she'd been before. In fact, she might have taken a small step backward when Ms. Daniels became concerned that Amy wouldn't be able to help her horse. The woman knew about the accident that happened the day Chloe arrived, but didn't seem to realize that Amy hadn't had the opportunity to even begin working with Chloe until today. She wasn't really supposed to be, but losing a client wasn't something they could afford, especially now.

Dropping her head in her hands, Amy stared down at her journal trying to make sense of Chloe and her own actions today, but her mind began to drift elsewhere. To the morning the horse arrived when she and Ty had been on their way to Calgary for the ultrasound.

Slowly, Amy's mind grew fuzzy as her eyes fell shut and her head began to weigh on her arms, slipping between them and nearly hitting the desk until she jumped awake. Rubbing her face, the fatigue pressed down on her. Her body felt like dead weight in the chair. She wanted to go up to the house, or even the loft, to take a nap, but couldn't get herself to wake up enough to move. Instead, she curled her arms on the desk to use as a pillow, dropping her head on them and again shutting her eyes, for once welcoming the darkness.

"Amy." Jack nudged her arm a while later, surprised to find her passed out on the desk, but not so surprised she ended up showing up at the ranch that day. Like everyone else, he knew she wouldn't be able to stay home and rest for long.

Amy jolted awake, lifting her head and blinking a few times to clear her sleepy vision to see Jack standing in the office. "Shouldn't you be home?" Jack asked, reaching for the phone that Amy had been laying on.

"I can't sit at home. At least here I feel a little more useful," she replied groggily, rubbing her eyes and still trying to get her vision to clear. Maybe taking more of those painkillers had been a bad idea. Her eyes were still heavy and her head hazy, but she forced herself to sit up and look at her grandfather.

"Does Ty know you're here?" Jack asked.

Amy shrugged. "Probably. If he knows me at all. I'd bet that's why Caleb was lurking around."

"Caleb was here? All day?" Amy nodded in response. "He was supposed to be out checking those fences. We had cows wandering along the side of the road. Where is he?"

"He went to Maggie's for lunch. He should be back any minute." Amy stood from the chair, blinking hard as the office started to spin. She reached out to steady herself on the desk, rubbing her temple with one hand.

"You okay?" Jack placed a steadying hand on her shoulder, a look of concern erasing the one of annoyance.

Amy nodded. "I'm fine. Just got up too fast." She looked up when the room slowed to a stop, training her eyes on the first thing that remained stationary. Her head spinning made her feel nauseous.

"Maybe you should go up to the house and rest. Lou has some leftover pot roast in the fridge if you're hungry."

At the mention of food Amy took a deep breath, but nodded anyway. "Yeah. I am pretty tired. That medication the doctors gave me is pretty strong stuff."

Jack reached out to stop his granddaughter when she moved to walk around him, studying her carefully. "You be careful with that stuff, okay? Remember what happened with your dad and Caleb." Jack warned, his serious gaze unrelenting.

"Grandpa. It's not like that. Besides, I only need to take it for the next couple of weeks. It's just more than I'm used to. I'm fine. I promise." Standing on her toes, Amy left a gentle peck on his cheek.

"Uh, hang on a sec. Have you talked to Ty yet about the… you know."

Amy paused on her way out the door, turning around slowly with her eyes lowered to the floor. After a moment's hesitation she met his gaze. "Not yet. He wants to, but I'm… I'm not sure that I'm ready yet. I've talked to him about that much, at least. He understands that it'll come up when I'm ready to… to face it." She swallowed, her eyes falling away from her grandfather as she once again started to fight the burning threat of tears.

Jack studied his granddaughter, nodding after a moment. "Okay," he started softly. "Because you know the rest of us are worried about you. We just want to make sure you're going to get through this okay. What you went through… well, it's not something that you just bounce back from."

"I know, Grandpa. We'll get through it. Promise." Giving him a soft reassuring smile, Amy was quick to leave the barn and head toward the house, but upon seeing Lou and Peter's SUV in the driveway, turned back around and climbed into her truck. Going inside would mean another heavy discussion that she wasn't sure she wanted to face. Reversing the truck from in front of the barn, Amy spun it around to head back down the driveway, tapping the brake when she was facing the ranch house. Gripping the steering wheel tightly, Amy stared at it hard, a lump lodging itself in her throat. She didn't want to go back to the trailer – that was the whole reason she came back to Heartland. After taking a few slow, deep breaths, Amy maneuvered the truck over to park in front of the house.


End file.
